
Book_j2jjT 



THi 



~<^ 






PHYSICA^ EDUCATION: 



A DISCOURSE 



DELIVERED TO A 



CONVENTION OF TEACHERS 



IN LEXINGTON, KY. 



ON THE 6th & 7th OF NOV. 1833. 



Br CHARLES CALDWELL, M. D. 



. 



BOSTON: 
MARSH, CAP EN & LYON 
1834. 



> . *s 






- ... -N 



i 



y % X 



Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1834, by 

Marsh, Capen & Lyon, 
in the Clerk's Office of the Dis. Court of the Dis. of Mass. 



V/J& 



BOSTON: 

B Dow, Pri 

122 Washington-st. 



James B Dow, Printer, > 



PREFACE 



The following production being too long for a 
Discourse, and too short for a Treatise, and possess- 
ing neither the style nor manner of an Essay, is a 
sort of nondescript in form, and by a certain class of 
readers, will perhaps, at first sight, be considered no 
less so, in some of the sentiments it contains. Should 
it be favored, however, with an attentive perusal, and 
a few second and serious thoughts, it is hoped that a 
more familiar acquaintance with it, will wear off any 
disagreeable effects, that first impressions may have 
produced. 

The author was induced to prepare and deliver it, 
and has been led to print it, for sundry reasons. He 
was requested to do so, and did not think it kind or 
complaisant to refuse — the subject is one of great 
importance, involving the highest perfection and 
earthly happiness that man can attain, to say nothing 
of its bearing on his future condition — and it has 
rarely if ever, been treated on the ground, and under 
the extent of principle, that justly belong to it. But 
the chief reason for publishing the work, was a belief 
that it contains a few seminal truths, not generally 
known, which, when fully developed, and reduced 
to practice, will lead to results of much usefulness, ia 
the work of education. 



4 PREFACE. 

The subject is treated altogether physiologically. 
And that such is the nature of education, cannot be 
denied. Every change it produces in those who are 
made the subject of it, are strictly physiological. 
This is as true of moral and intellectual, as of phys- 
ical education. All the beneficial effects of training, 
arise from the improvements produced by it, in or- 
ganized matter, rendering such matter, whether it be 
brain, nerve, muscle, lungs, or of any other descrip- 
tion, a better piece of machinery, for mind to work 
with. A knowledge of these truths is peculiarly im- 
portant, as they show the essential connexion between 
mind and matter, and make it clearly appear, that, 
for its sound and vigorous operations, the former de- 
pends on the condition of the latter. Hence the im- 
portance of a strict attention to the health of pupils, 
even independently of their corporeal suffering from 
disease. Their mental character is no less concerned 
in the issue. 

Let no one allege that this view of education in- 
volves materialism, or any principle, unfriendly to 
morality or religion. The charge would be most 
unjust. The entire subserviency of matter to mind 
is acknowledged in it ; and that is all that the doc- 
trine of spirituality can require. It must not claim 
to take from matter the rank and attributes conferred 
on it by its Creator. But for a fitter discussion 
of these topics, the reader is referred to the work 
itself, which, without further remark, is respectfully 
submitted to his unprejudiced judgment. 



THOUGHTS 



PHYSICAL EDUCATION; 



Gentlemen : 
It would be not only a departure from the ob- 
ject that has called you together, but objectionable 
in itself, and injurious in its effects, to introduce into 
the exercises of the present occasion the slightest 
allusion to matters of party. Nor would any one 
more reluctantly than myself be guilty of such a 
fault. Let me hope, however, that, without furnish- 
ing ground for a charge against me to that effect, or 
awakening in the mind of any one, who hears me, 
an unfriendly feeling, or an opposing thought, I may 
be permitted to observe, that the aspect of our 
country, political as well as social, is gloomy and 
portentous. And when we turn from the present to 
the future, the prospect presents but little to cheer 
us, unless a change, to be presently specified, can 
be produced in the public mind. While the embit- 
tered strife of parties, differing in their views of men 
and measures, and the growing discontents of geo- 
graphical section,* seriously threaten the repose of 

* This Discourse was written at the time when the spirit of 
nullification in the south, was at its height. 

2 



14 PHYSICAL EDUCATION. 

the country, not to say the integrity of the Union, — 
the poison spread abroad by malice and falsehood, 
through the public prints, is tainting the community 
with moral corruption. So deep and pestilent is 
this fountain, and so broad and destructive to sound- 
ness of principle, as well as to the love and diffusion 
of truth, the stream that issues from it, as to render 
it perhaps more than doubtful, whether, perverted 
as it is to the vilest of purposes, the freedom of the 
press be a good or an evil. If men be too corrupt 
and vicious, to refrain, of their own accord, from 
practices disgraceful in themselves, and ruinous to 
their country, I am far from being convinced that 
they ought not to be debarred from them, by public 
authority. 

Every excess is an evil ; and that of the liberty 
of the press, which, turned to licentiousness, de- 
fames, misleads, inflames, and demoralizes, is among 
the most deplorable. Were any one to pronounce 
the sentiment here advanced, to be unfriendly to the 
doctrines of republican government, my reply would 
be, that it is not unfriendly to morality or Christian- 
ity, but concurrent with both. Nor is it less so 
with the spirit of genuine republicanism, which 
embraces and upholds the general good, and is 
therefore hostile to the corruption, fraud, and false- 
hood, to which too many of our public presses un- 
blushingly minister. 

For this condition of things, stored with the ele- 
ments of such fearful calamity, there is but one 
remedy — the advancement of the people in intelli- 



PHYSICAL EDUCATION. 15 

gence and virtue. I say ' advancement ;' for there 
is reason to apprehend, that the stock of those attri- 
butes, now possessed by us, is too limited for the 
work to be performed by them, — the eradication of 
existing, and the prevention of future and more 
grievous evils. It is to the improved mental char- 
acter of the rising generation, and those who shall 
succeed them, beyond that of the generation now at 
maturity, that our hopes can attach themselves, with 
any reasonable prospect of being realized. On the 
redeeming influence of such improvement, alone, 
can the American people safely and confidently 
rely, for the attainment of that degree of national 
prosperity, greatness, and glory, and that amount of 
individual happiness, which is placed within their 
reach, if they do not neglect or abuse their privi- 
leges. 

Two questions of moment here present them- 
selves. Is the amendment referred to, within our 
reach ? and, if so, What are the means by which it 
may be compassed? I answer, Yes : the end can be 
attained ; and an improved education constitutes the 
means. To represent it fairly, and recommend it to 
the acceptance and encouragement it deserves, I 
may safely add, that it is the only means. To rely 
on any other, would be a deadly fallacy. By that 
alone can our safety be secured. And by that it 
can be secured, provided we avail ourselves of it, as 
wisdom dictates, and duty enjoins. But we must 
avail ourselves of it promptly, else the opportunity 
may be lost to us forever. It is not only ' in the 



16 PHYSICAL EDUCATION. 

affairs of men,' that ' there is a tide, which, taken 
at the flood, leads on to fortune.' The same is no 
less true of nations. And 1 may truly add, e On 
such a full sea are we now afloat ; and we must take 
the current, as it serves, or lose our venture.' 

The influence of education, on the condition of 
our country, were it judiciously conducted, and gen- 
erally diffused, would be irresistible ; and its issue 
would be precisely the improvement we require. 
Not only would the people receive from it the intel- 
ligence necessary to guide them in public affairs 5 
they would be improved by it in their entire charac- 
ter, moral and social, intellectual and political, and 
enabled the better to control their passions, and give 
them a safe and useful direction. Prepared to per- 
ceive the public good with greater clearness, and to 
pursue it with purer intentions, and a steadier aim, 
they would be less susceptible of the rage and sway 
of party, and more effectually guarded against the 
machinations of unprincipled demagogues and aspir- 
ants to power, who might wish to mislead them, for 
the promotion of their own selfish and sinister pur- 
poses. Thus would the nation become a n v ursery of 
abler statesmen and more virtuous patriots, and have 
its highest interests more certainly secured. 

Fortunately for our country, these sentiments are 
not new ; nor are they limited, as respects the num- 
ber of those who entertain them. They are taking 
root in the public mind, with the most gratifying ra- 
pidity, and promise to be productive of invaluable 
fruit. There is reason to hope, that, as the issue of 



PHYSICAL EDUCATION. 17 

them, education will be no longer neglected in the 
United States, but improved and extended, in pro- 
portion to our demand for it. Already is the inter- 
est awakened in favor of it, broad and deep ; and it 
is beginning to be regarded in its true character, as 
constituting not only the corner-stone, but the foun- 
dation and cement of civil society. Already is it 
beginning to be looked to, as alone calculated to 
rescue human nature from the dominion of animal 
propensity and passion, and to bestow on it the high- 
est perfection of which it is susceptible. Uneduca- 
ted whites, and the roving children of the forest will 
soon be considered, and justly so, as occupying 
nearly the same level in the scale of being. Nor is 
this all. There is cause to believe, that the period 
is approaching, when to be wholly uneducated will 
be held dishonorable and out of fashion ; and that 
will do much to complete the spread and triumph of 
education. As respects the points, on which they 
bear, honor and fashion are everywhere despotic. 

That these views are not fallacious, but that the 
salutary change referred to is in progress, appears 
from an abundance of concurrent testimony. The 
meeting of the Convention I have the honor of 
addressing, testifies strongly to that effect. So do 
many other facts, which might be easily cited. 
Teachers, of every rank in their profession, are not 
only better rewarded, but held in higher estimation 
than formerly. It is no longer true, as it once was, 
that persons unfit for any thing else, on account of 

indolence, infirmity, or some other disqualification, 

2* 



18 PHYSICAL EDUCATION. 

are employed, as instructers. Men of character and 
competency alone, are now considered worthy of the 
trust. Already is this the case, in many parts of our 
country, and promises soon to be so in all of them. 
Annals, Journals, and Libraries are established, Ly- 
ceums are opened, Institutes erected, Associations 
formed, Essays published, Sermons preached, Con- 
ventions held, and Discourses delivered, for the 
advancement of education. Those measures are 
calculated to form, foster, and diffuse a taste for it, 
excite ambition in it, and 5 rendering it popular, in- 
sure its success. For popularity, whether it attach 
to projects fitted for good or for evil, is a current 
which nothing can withstand 5 and fortunately, in the 
present instance, it sets in the right direction. Tn 
fine, a large portion of the talent of America, being, 
in some way, enlisted in the cause of education, and 
the general bent of society concurring w T ith it, an 
effort so powerful and well directed, can scarcely 
fail to produce an era in the annals of our country, 
memorable alike for the diffusion of useful knowl- 
eoge, and the. advancement of human happiness. In 
the vocabulary of such numbers, united and reso- 
lute, intelligent and persevering, there is no suitable 
place for the terms impossibility, failure, or defeat. 
To confederacies of the kind, all things, within the 
scope of human means, become practicable and 
easy. — But my business is, not to speak of educa- 
tion, in the abstract, but to. offer a few remarks on 
one of its branches. To that task, I shall now pro- 
ceed. 



PHYSICAL EDUCATION. 19 

That I may the more easily and certainly be un- 
derstood, however, in my subsequent exposition of 
it, allow me first to make a few observations explan- 
atory of what I mean, by the term education, as my 
understanding of it may differ, perhaps, in some de- 
gree, from yours. Any theoretical difference, how- 
ever, that may exist between us, on this point, will 
have no influence in creating a practical one, on 
others of more immediate usefulness. 

Let me here apprise you, that, in giving my defi- 
nition, I must speak phrenologically. As education 
relates to the operations of mind, as well as of body, 
it must be considered and presented, as well sum- 
marily as in detail, with a reference to some system 
of mental philosophy. But of all the systems I have 
examined, (and I have looked carefully into several 
of them,) that of Gall and Spurzheim is the only 
one I can either believe or understand. As soon 
would I bind myself to discover the philosopher's 
stone, or to concoct the elixir of life out of simples, 
as to find substantial meaning in many of the tenets 
of fashionable metaphysics. Indeed, the dreams of 
alchymists, and not a few of those of metaphysicians 
have a strong family-likeness. And well they may. 
They are the twin-brood of common parents, Error 
and Superstition, and were ushered to life during the 
Dark Ages. These are my reasons for speaking in 
conformity to phrenological principles, in the defini- 
tion I am about to offer. 

By education, in the abstract, I mean a scheme 
of action, or training, by which any form of living 



20 PHYSICAL EDUCATION. 

matter may be improved, and, by perseverance, 
reared to the highest perfection of which it is sus- 
ceptible. I say, ' any form ;' because the lower or- 
ders of living beings, vegetables not excepted, may 
be educated and improved, as certainly as the high- 
er, and on the same grounds. That it may produce 
the desired effect, the scheme pursued, must con- 
form to the constitution of the race of beings, for 
whose improvement it is intended ; and, in the pres- 
ent instance, that race is our own. No one, there- 
fore, is capable of devising and arranging such a 
scheme, for the amendment of the general condition 
of man, nor even of comprehending and skilfully ap- 
plying it, unless he be thoroughly acquainted with 
his constitution. Hence, without such an acquaint- 
ance, it is impossible to become an able and suc- 
cessful instructer. He that would rectify or improve 
a piece of machinery, must first understand it, in its 
structure and principles. Under the want of such a 
knowledge of it, to touch it, is to impair it : except 
it be saved by the intervention of accident. In like 
manner, he that would - alter human nature for the 
better, must know it, as it is. Special education, 
designed for a given, purpose, is a scheme of training 
in accordance with that purpose. I need scarcely 
add, that general training does nothing more than 
improve general powers ; while special training fits 
for some definite and corresponding pursuit. 

By the constitution of man, as just referred to, I 
mean his material portion, in its organized and vital 
capacity, that being, as I feel persuaded, the only 



PHYSICAL EDUCATION. 21 

part of him 3 we are able to improve. The mind 
being a spirit, whose nature and qualities, as spirit, 
are concealed from us, and with which none of our 
faculties are fitted to make us acquainted, we do not 
possess any means, nor can we conceive of any, 
calculated to produce in it either amendment or 
change. Its subtle and inscrutable character places 
it beyond our action and influence. Nor, as will 
appear hereafter, does the work of education require 
it to be changed. It only calls for an amendment 
of the instruments, with which it works. So exalted 
is my view of spirit, that I believe it to be compe- 
tent, without any interference from us, to the highest 
actions, for which the body is fitted. To amend it, 
belongs only to Him who made it. 

It occurs to me, that he who believes in his power 
to improve spirit, by making it stronger, larger, more 
active, or in any respect better, has a much less ex- 
alted opinion of it, than he has of himself. A 
capacity to amend, implies a superiority, in the 
amender and his machinery, to the thing he im- 
proves. But the whole machinery of education is 
material. To contend, then, that education can im- 
prove the abstract mind, is to assert the superiority 
of matter to spirit. This is neither quibble nor 
sophistry, but a deduction of reason, and a dictate of 
common sense. Nor will any thing but a spirit of 
sophistry attempt its subversion. Except the teach- 
er be superior to the pupil, he cannot instruct him. 
Much less can he do so, being greatly inferior. 
Spirit, being the superior, may modify and amend 



22 PHYSICAL EDUCATION. 

matter ; but for the converse of this to be true, seems 
impossible. 

The organized system of man, constitutes the 
machinery, with which alone his mind operates, dur- 
ing their connexion, as soul and body. Improve the 
apparatus, then, and you facilitate and improve the 
w T ork, which the mind performs with it, precisely as 
you facilitate steam-operation, and enhance its pro- 
duct, by improving the machinery, with which it is 
executed. In one case, steam, and in the other, 
spirit, continue unchanged ; and each works and 
produces, with a degree of perfection, corresponding 
to that of the instruments it employs. 

As respects several of the functions of the mind? 
the correctness of the foregoing theory is universally 
admitted. Seeing, hearing, tasting, smelling, and 
feeling, as well as voluntary muscular motion, are as 
true mental operations, as judging, reasoning, remem- 
bering, or calculation by numbers. And the former 
are as susceptible of improvement, as the latter. 
But when improved, no one considers the result as 
consisting in any amendment of simple spirit, but of 
compound organized matter. When, for example, 
vision is improved, the amendment is uniformly re- 
ferred to the eye, the optic nerve, and that portion 
of the brain immediately associated with them, they 
being the organs, by which the mind sees, and with- 
out which, it cannot see. Is hearing improved? 
For the same reason, it is not the mind, but the 
auditory apparatus that is amended. Of the other 
senses, the same is true. If either of them be im- 



PHYSICAL EDUCATION. 23 

proved, it is the organ that is meliorated in its con- 
dition, not the mind that uses it. TNor is this truth 
less obvious, as respects the instruments of voluntary 
motion. The opera-dancer, the tumbler, and the 
swordsman, do not, in acquiring expertness in their 
occupations, improve their minds, but their muscles 
and joints, with the nerves and portions of the brain, 
that have the governance of them. These positions 
are so plain, that to state them, is to prove them. 

Respecting the higher mental operations, the 
same may be affirmed with equal safety. In per- 
forming them, the mind works with the brain as its 
machinery, as certainly as it does with the eye in 
seeing, or the muscles in dancing and swordsman- 
ship. Is any form of memory, — say the memory of 
words, or that of places, — rendered more apt and re- 
tentive, by judicious exercise ? We have no reason 
to believe, that the mind or spirit is amended, in 
this instance, any more than in those heretofore 
enumerated. It is a portion of the brain — the organ 
of language or locality — that is amended. By 
practice, man becomes more powerful and adroit in 
reasoning and judging. Here again the mind is not 
changed. The belief to that effect has no shadow 
of evidence to sustain it. The improvement in this 
case, as in the preceding ones, is confined to the 
organs, with which the mind reasons and judges. 
Arguments, not to be refuted, could be adduced *in 
favor of this statement, were the discussion admis- 
sible. Indeed, for man to claim the power of opera- 
ting immediately on spirit, and either amending or 



24 PHYSICAL EDUCATION. 

deteriorating it, by any means he can employ, is an 
assumption perfectly gratuitous, and, in my opinion, 
not a little extraordinary and "arrogant. It is enough 
that he is able to change matter, and control it to 
his purposes, by material agents. And all the 
means used in teaching, are material. There is 
good reason to believe, as already stated, that noth- 
ing short of the creative will, that brought spirit 
into existence, can modify it, either for better or 
worse. When we wish, then, I say, to improve 
mental operations, we have only to amend the or- 
gans, which the mind employs in performing them. 
And it will appear hereafter, that this is a proposi- 
tion of great importance, in the scheme of human 
improvement. For no other reason would I have 
ventured to introduce it, on the present occasion, 
aware, as I am, that its correctness is not likely, at 
first, to be generally acknowledged by you. Allow 
me, however, to repeat, that a difference of opinion, 
on this point, will have no tendency to create a dif- 
ference on many that are to follow. The differ- 
ence will be in theory, not in practice. 

Education is usually divided into two branches, 
Physical and Moral. More correctly might it be 
divided into three— Physical, Moral, and Intellectual. 
' Nothing is more certain, than that the Intellectual 
and the Moral powers may be educated separately ; 
the former being amended, while the latter are not; 
and the converse. Facts in proof of this are abun- 
dant. There is as real a distinction between moral 
and intellectual education, as there is between phys- 



PHYSICAL EDUCATION, 25 

ical education and either of them. It will appear, 
however, presently, that they are all three so inti- 
mately connected, that the improvement of any one 
of them may be made to contribute to that of the 
others. Nor can it be otherwise, except through 
mismanagement. Moral action, intellectual action, 
and what, for want of a better name, I may call 
physical action, have their seats and instruments in 
different parts of the human system ; and those 
parts are essentially connected by sympathy, and 
other ties more mechanical and obvious. One of 
them being injured or benefited, therefore, the oth- 
ers are affected in a corresponding manner. Deriv- 
ing their being and sustenance from the same source, 
and serving as elements of the same individual per- 
son, each of whose parts is necessary to the integ- 
rity and perfection of the whole, it would be singu- 
lar, were it not so. To illustrate my meaning, and 
prove my position. 

The condition of the morals of every individual 
depends on the condition of the moral organs of his 
brain, the condition of his intellect on that of his in- 
tellectual organs, and the condition of his physical 
powers on that of the remaining portion of his body, 
including the cutaneous system, the digestive, the 
respiratory, the circulatory, the secretory, the 
absorbent, the muscular, and some others. And all 
these parts are so mutually dependent, that no one 
of them can be either materially injured or benefit- 
ed alone. More or less, the others correspond to 
the condition into which it is thrown. Are the 
3 



26 PHYSICAL EDUCATION. 

digestive, the respiratory, and the circulatory sys- 
tems, or either of them seriously deranged, the brain 
suffers, through all its divisions, for want of a suffi- 
cient supply of good blood, to nourish, vivify, and 
strengthen it. Is the brain itself materially deranged, 
it is incompetent to prepare, in due quantity, and of 
sound qualities, its matter of influence, whatever that 
may be, and transmit it to the other parts of the 
system. They therefore suffer in turn. Hence, I 
repeat, that moral and intellectual education, which 
consists in amending the condition of the brain, and 
physical education, which is the improvement of the 
other parts of the body, are indispensable to the per- 
fection of each other, and, of course, to that of the 
whole system. Physical education is to the other 
two, what the root, trunk, and branches of the tree 
are to its leaves, blossoms, and fruit. It is the 
source and sine qua non of their existence. Injure 
or improve it, and you produce on them a kindred 
effect. Hence, physical education is far more im- 
portant than is commonly imagined. Without a due 
regard to it, by which I mean a stricter and more 
judicious attention than is paid to it at present, man 
cannot attain the perfection of his nature. Ancient 
Greece might be cited, in confirmation of this. May 
history and other forms of record be credited, the 
people of that country were, as a nation, physically 
and intellectually, the most perfect of the human 
race. And there is reason to believe, that their un- 
rivalled attention to physical education, was highly 
influential in producing the result. 



PHYSICAL EDUCATION. 27 

In truth, the ancient Persians and Greeks, as well 
as some other nations of antiquity, appear to have 
cultivated that form of education to a much greater 
extent than the moderns do. Nor were they with- 
out their reasons for this. For their standing in 
war, in common with their influence in peace, indi- 
viduals, among those people, were greatly indebted 
to their personal strength. The cause of this was, 
that they were, in a high degree, deficient in the 
improvements of art, especially in their knowledge 
and command of the mechanical powers. Their 
chief substitute for this want, was their own bodily 
powers. It was incumbent on them, therefore, to 
increase those powers, in the highest practicable de- 
gree. The invention of gun powder has brought 
the weak and the strong to an equality in war ; and 
the improvements made in mechanics, have done 
nearly the same, in relation to the arts of peace. 
Hence, as respects the general business of life, the 
moderns have much less necessity for personal 
strength, than the ancients had. And, as mankind 
act from motives of necessity and interest, much 
more than from those of any other sort, physical 
education, the chief source of superior strength of 
person, has been greatly neglected, especially by the 
higher orders of society, for two or three centuries. 
Knowledge being now the only ground of great 
power and influence, intellectual education, receives, 
at present, a much more exclusive attention than it 
formerly did, and much more than comports with 
the benefit of our race. Even it, however, would 



28 PHYSICAL EDUCATION. 

profit greatly , by an improved condition of physical 
education. 

This brings me immediately to my task. Before 
actually entering on it, however, suffer me- to ob- 
serve, that if, instead of treating technically of moral, 
intellectual, and physical education, authors and oth- 
ers would speak correctly of the education of the 
different portions of the body, each portion being 
trained according to its organization and character, 
ihey would be more philosophical and intelligible 
than they are. I am persuaded they would be also 
more instructive. The skin, for example, must be 
educated by one mode of discipline, the stomach by 
another, the lungs by a third, the muscles and circu- 
latory system by a fourth, and each external sense 
and cerebral organ by a method corresponding to 
the peculiarity of its nature. In this view of the 
subject, which is the only rational one, the training 
of the brain, in all its departments, by whatever 
name they may be called, is as truly a physical or 
physiological process, as the training of any other 
part of the body. I shall not, however, out of mere 
conformity to these principles, employ at present 
any new terms or phrases, as those already in use 
are sufficient for my purpose, and willbe better un- 
derstood, than such as I might substitute for them. 
It is of physical education, then, in the usual ac- 
ceptation of the phrase, that I am now to speak. 

This process may be defined, that scheme of 
training, which contributes most effectually to the 
development.,, health, and perfection of living mat* 



PHYSICAL EDUCATION. 29 

ier. — As applied to man, it is that scheme which 
raises his whole system to its summit of perfection. 
In this are included the highest tone and vigor of all 
parts of the body, that are consistent with a sound 
condition of them ; for the tone of a vital organ? 
like that of a musical instrument, may be too high? 
as well as too low. 

Physical education, then, in its philosophy and 
practice, is of great compass. If complete, it would 
be tantamount to an entire system of Hygeiene. It 
would embrace every thing, that, by bearing in any- 
way on the human body, might injure or benefit it 
in its health, vigor, and fitness for action. It must 
be obvious to you, therefore, that, on the present 
occasion, 1 can consider it but partially. To give a 
full development of it, volumes of writing would be 
necessary, and days would be required to read 
them. So numerous are the elements, which enter 
into the aggregate of the scheme, that I can but barely 
refer to most of them, and speak of a few of them 
very briefly. 

Were I to commence at the real fountain of phys- 
ical education, and trace the stream to its close, I 
should be obliged to refer to a period anterior to the 
birth, or even the formation of those, of the promo- 
tion and perfection of whose health and strength I 
should be treating. 

The first and most important element of physical 

education, is to procure, for those to be educated, a 

constitution of body originally sound. To this, the 

soundness of parents is indispensable — it being a law 

3* 



30 PHYSICAL EDUCATION. 

of nature, that constitutional qualities are hereditary, 
If the stamina of the child be defective, it is not to 
be expected that the health and vigor of the adult 
can be made perfect. The primitive deficiency,, 
though it may be lessened, can never be removed. 
As well may you look for the erection of a solid 
edifice, to endure for ages, out of decayed mate- 
rials. 

The constitution of the child may be irremediably 
impaired, by various causes. Of these, the marriage 
of the feeble and infirm is one, — children inheriting 
the constitutions of their parents. 

Under this head are included all persons having a 
well-known constitutional tendency to any form of 
disease ; the more especially if that tendency be a 
family inheritance. Of this description are those 
who are predisposed to insanity, idiocy, pulmonary 
consumption, asthma, gout, dyspepsia, scrophula, 
and other affections known to be transmissible from 
parents to their offspring. 

Early marriages, — those, I mean, that take place 
before the full maturity of the parties, is another. 
Sound and perfect fruit cannot be the product of 
immature and feeble trees. This truth is well 
known to skilful agriculturists, and scrupulously ob- 
served and practised on, by them, in their efforts to 
improve their domestic animals, and the products of 
their grounds. It is neglected, and run counter to, 
only in what are termed efforts to improve the 
human race. To improve the human race ! rather 
say, to deteriorate it ! While man is the laborious 



PHYSICAL EDUCATION. 31 

improver of every thing else, as well in art as in 
nature, strange as it may appear, he neglects, or rather 
deteriorates himself; not remembering that self- im- 
provement would not only be a source of the purest 
pleasure to him, but would qualify him the better for 
effecting every other form of it, by increasing his 
powers. 

Another cause, is marriage, where the male party 
is far advanced in life, the female being within the 
period of fruitfulness. The issue of such connex- 
ions are rarely possessed of sound constitutions. 
They often exhibit some of the elements of old age, 
even in their. youth. And no instance is remem- 
bered at present, where they have been long-lived, 
or distinguished by mental or bodily powers. 

A fourth cause is the marriage of the indigent, 
who are unable to provide for their offspring a com- 
petent supply of wholesome food. Hence the uni- 
versal degeneracy of the poor — of those, I mean, 
whose nutriment is scanty, of bad quality, and imper- 
fectly cooked. For the cooking of diet is of great 
moment; and the cookery of the poor is always 
defective. 

A fifth cause is a long perseverance in family alli- 
ances ; marriages, I mean, between those nearly allied 
to each other, by descent. Be the immediate rea- 
son what it may, the fact is indisputable, that the 
descendants of parents thus related degenerate ; and 
the families, in time, become extinct. Witness the 
present royal families of Europe, that, from sceptred 
pride, and state policy, have long intermarried with 



32 PHYSICAL EDUCATION. 

each other. They can now scarcely muster heirs, 
in the direct line, to occupy their thrones — and such 
heirs, that, the whole of them united, would not form 
a well-gifted man ! Three of them are females,* 
the average of whose ages would make them chil- 
dren of about ten years old — feeble hands, to sway 
the trident and the sceptre over a hundred and fifty 
millions of the human race ! Yet, those families, 
now so degenerate, were once signalized for high 
and noble qualities, in the midst of the most noble, 
and were, on that account, clad in purple, and deco- 
rated with crowns. Nothing but commanding attri- 
butes, mental or personal, or both, could have raised 
them, at first, to regal power. Of the nobility of 
Portugal, I might observe the same. They were 
once the pride of Europe. But, by intermarriages, 
continued for centuries, they are now a most degen- 
erate race. By intermarrying with commoners, the 
nobility of Great Britain, Turkey, and Persia, avoid 
degeneracy, and continue among the finest people of 
their respective nations. 

The last cause I shall cite, as operating before the 
birth of the child, is the state of health of the mother, 
during gestation. Unless that be sound, the consti- 
tution of the offspring will be necessarily impaired. 
It is in vain to allege, in opposition to this, that the 
infants of delicate, enfeebled, and even sickly moth- 

* When, from any cause, men are feeble in their constitu- 
tional powers, their offspring, if they have any, superabound in 
females. Of inferior animals, the same is true. 



PHYSICAL EDUCATION. 33 

ers, are sometimes healthy and robust. They would 
have been more so, had the health of their mothers 
been in a better condition. 

The avoidance, by females, therefore, while preg- 
nant, of every thing that might injure them, cannot 
be too strict. Nor is this all. They should take 
more exercise in the open air than they usually do. 
The feeling, which induces many of them to shut 
themselves up in their rooms, for weeks and months, 
before parturition, is an excess of delicacy — were 
the term less exceptionable, I would say false deli- 
cacy — and ought not to be indulged. Their food 
should be wholesome, nourishing, and easy of diges- 
tion, and should be ( taken in quantities sufficient to 
give them their entire strength, and maintain all 
their functions in full vigor. Their minds ought to 
be kept in a state of tranquillity. In a particular 
manner, the effects of frightful appearances, alarm- 
ing accidents, and agitating and impassioned tales 
and narratives should be carefully guarded against by 
them. The blighting operation of the ' Reign of 
Terror,' in Paris, on the children born during that 
period, furnishes fearful evidence of the influence of 
the distracted and horrified condition of the mother, 
over the system of the unborn infant. An unusual 
number of them was still-born. Of those who were 
not so, a number equally uncommon died at an early 
age ; and, of those who attained adult life, an un- 
usual proportion were subject to epilepsy, madness, 
or some other form of cerebral disease. Pinel tells 
us, ' that out of ninety-two children born after the 



34 PHYSICAL EDUCATION. 

blowing up of the arsenal at London, in 1793, eight 
were affected by a species of cretinism, and died 
before the expiration of the fifth year ; thirty-three 
languished through a miserable existence, of from 
nine to ten months' duration ; sixteen died on com- 
ing into the world, and two were born-with numerous 
fractures of the longer bones ! The latter effect 
must have been produced by the inordinate and de- 
ranged contraction of the uterus. 

Over the foregoing causes, you, as mere instruct- 
ed, have no control. For no mismanagement of 
them, therefore, are you accountable. Nor does 
the direction of physical education in the. nursery, 
fall within your province. Yet is the treatment of 
children there, of great moment both to them and to 
you, in subsequent years. Its effects, for good or 
evil, can scarcely fail to be as lasting as their lives, 
and to influence, more or less, their entire destiny. 
A few remarks on it, therefore, will not perhaps be 
out of place. 

The sound nursery-education of children, consists 
chiefly in the judicious^management of diet, cleanli- 
ness, clothing, atmospherical temperature, respira- 
tion, muscular exercise, sleep, and] the animal pas- 
sions. I say ' animal passions,' because children in 
the nursery have no other kind. Of the education 
of the moral feelings, I shall speak hereafter. I do 
not say that no degree of moral education can be 
communicated to children at a very early period. 
Their moral organs, however, being as yet not only 
small, but very immature, cannot be operated on to 



PHYSICAL EDUCATION. 35 

much advantage. An attempt to excite them pow- 
erfully, might even do mischief. 

For many reasons, infants are best nourished, 
when nursed by their mothers. Though exceptions 
to this sometimes occur, they are rare, and might, 
by well-regulated conduct, be rendered much more 
so. When children have passed the period of lac- 
tation, their diet should be simple, nutritious, and 
easily digested ; and they may take it liberally, and 
at shorter intervals than adults. But they should 
never be gorged with it, nor allowed to eat until 
their appetites are cloyed. Of all solid substances, 
whether animal or vegetable, they should early learn 
the importance of thorough mastication. They 
should be taught, that to swallow such articles, with- 
out chewing them, is indecent, as well as injurious; 
for they will often do, in defiance of danger and pos- 
itive prohibition, what they would not do, in viola- 
tion of good manners. High-seasoned condiments, 
and other provocatives, should be carefully withheld 
from them, So should unripe fruit, and crude veg- 
etables,- — all their diet being thoroughly cooked. 
Indeed, children are, on an average, much more in- 
jured than benefited, by eating undressed summer 
fruit, of whatever kind it may be, and whether it be 
ripe or green. One reason of this is, that they are 
permitted to eat too much of it, and to take it at im- 
proper times. Every thing either highly stimula- 
ting, or difficult of digestion, should be prohibited 
food. Such diet is bad enough for adults ; for chil- 
dren, tender, feeble, and susceptible as they are, it 



36 PHYSICAL EDUCATION. 

is poison, destroying life, at limes, in a few hours. 
Infinite mischief is done, by giving children a ' little ' 
of a prohibited article, because ' the dear creatures 
wanted it, and held out their little hands for it ! ' A 
transgression of this kind, by a nurse, should be vis- 
ited on her, by an immediate dismissal. Let it 
never be forgotten nor overlooked, that, like all other 
parts of the body, the stomach may be strengthened, 
by skilful training. Let that organ receive suitable 
aliment, in proper quantities, and at well-regulated 
periods, and it will be as certainly improved, in its 
powers and sympathies, as the brain, external sen- 
ses, and muscles are, by their appropriate kinds of 
action. Nor is it less impaired and enfeebled than 
other organs, by too much or too little action. It is 
subject to all the laws that govern other portions of 
organized matter. Suitable exercise, indulged in to 
the proper extent, strengthens it, while excessive and 
deficient action weakens it, and unfits it for its func- 
tions. Too much attention cannot be paid to the 
bowels, in the earlier years of life, and, indeed, 
throughout the whole of it. Their condition should 
always be free, inclining to laxity, rather than the 
contrary. Let them be regulated by diet and regi- 
men, if possible. Should that course, however, 
prove unsuccessful, the necessary laxatives must be 
administered. 

The cleanliness of children, is indispensable to 
the healthy action of their skin, and, through that, 
to their general health ; and the water used in 
cleansing them should be tepid. Though vigorous 



PHYSICAL, EDUCATION. 37 

children may bear bathing in cold water, with impu- 
nity, delicate ones cannot. And even the former, if 
in the slightest degree indisposed, may be injured by 
it. It being, moreover, not always easy to ascer- 
tain, whether children are in perfect health, or not, 
tepid water is always safest. Nor is infancy the 
proper period to attempt to produce hardihood of 
constitution, by exposure to a low temperature. 
Practice founded on the opposite opinion, is often 
productive of serious, not to say fatal results. 

I shall only add, under this head, that personal 
cleanliness, as one of the minor virtues, (for it de- 
serves to be so called,) is much less attended to and 
esteemed, in the United States, than it ought to be. 
Nor does this charge implicate only the neglect of 
children. Adults are still more negligent of cleanli- 
ness in themselves. During weeks and months, 
water touches no parts of many of them, save their 
hands and faces — and' — longo intervello — their feet 
and ancles. This is downright uncleanliness, not to 
give it a harsher name. Were the inhabitants of 
our country, to use some form of ablution much 
more frequently than they do, they would be purer, 
more comfortable, and healthier than they are. 

The clothing of infants should be soft, fitted to 
absorb moisture from the skin, and retain the natural 
warmth of the body, and so fashioned, as to be 
loose and free. The tight bandaging of children, 
and every other form of pressure, made by their 
clothing, is pernicious. Health has been injured, 
and life destroyed by it. This is true, more espe- 
4 



38 PHYSICAL EDUCATION. 

cially, of undue pressure on the abdomen or chest— 
the parts on which it is most frequently made. 

The temperature of a nursery ought to be com- 
fortable. It should neither chill with cold, nor flush 
with heat. To the tenderness and susceptibility of 
infancy, all extremes are hurtful. Means to prevent 
the apartment from being traversed by currents of 
cold or damp air should be provided, and nothing 
neglected, that may tend to secure an equable tem- 
perature. 

The respiration of infants is immensely important, 
and cannot be too vigilantly attended to. The air 
breathed by them should be fresh and pure. Let 
nurseries, therefore, be spacious, clean, and thor- 
oughly ventilated. Nor is it unimportant, that they 
be well lighted — I mean with windows. The influ- 
ence of light, on animal life, is not sufficiently appre- 
ciated. Facts as well as principles show, that it is 
much greater and more salutary, than is commonly 
believed. Darkness long continued, is scarcely less 
pernicious to tender animals, (and children are such,) 
than to plants. Account for it as we may, light co- 
operates with oxygen, in imparting to the arterial 
blood, the brilliancy of its scarlet. Not only *the 
complexion, but the blood itself, the source of com- 
plexion, loses much of its florid hue, in miners, 
criminals confined in dark dungeons, and other per- 
sons long secluded from the light. During suitable 
weather, infants should pass several hours daily in 
the open air. The constant housing of adults is bad ; 
that of infants far worse ; because their delicacy and 



PHYSICAL EDUCATION. 39 

sensitiveness are greater. Respiration acts primi- 
tively on the lungs ; and those organs are invigorated 
and otherwise benefited, by the laughing, shouting, 
crowing, and occasional crying of children. How- 
ever unpleasant the latter sound may be, it is a nat- 
ural one. And nature is, in all things, our best 
guide; though w r e must not abuse her, or suffer her 
10 be abused, by any sort of excess. Crying, within 
proper bounds, is good exercise for the lungs, and 
other vocal organs of children ; and suitable exer- 
cise is a certain source of strength, to every portion 
of the body. The late Professor Rush, who was 
noted for his pithy, antithetical, and sagacious re- 
marks, said, in his lectures, that, though the usual 
adage respecting children was, ' Laugh and be fat ; ? 
he had learned, from observation, that they might 
also i Cry and be fat.' And he was right. 

The muscular exercise of children should be reg- 
ulated with more judgment and care, than is usually 
bestowed on it. Crawling is their first mode of pro- 
gression. In this they should be encouraged, and 
induced to practise it freely ; and it ought to be 
somewhat protracted. Nurses and parents, espe- 
cially young parents, are generally too anxious to 
see their infants beginning to walk, or rather to tot- 
ter along, in a form of movement, that can hardly be 
called walking. Hence they induce them to make 
premature efforts to that effect. The evils likely to 
arise, and which often do arise, from this practice, 
are plain. Owing to the immaturity and flexibility 
of their bones, and the feebleness of their muscles, 



40 PHYSICAL EDUCATION. 

the lower extremities are frequently bent and mis- 
shapen by it; and the children, falling, injure their 
heads, or other parts of their bodies, by bringing 
them into collision with hard, cutting, or puncturing 
substances. The precise age, at which children 
may begin to walk with safety, cannot be settled, by 
any general rule. The progress toward maturity, 
being more rapid in some of them, than in others, 
the periods of their fitness to walk, will be earlier or 
later, in corresponding degrees. But none should 
be allowed to walk, until the firmness and strength 
of their limbs are sufficient to sustain, without distor- 
tion or injury, the weight of their bodies. Observa- 
tion on individual cases, therefore, aided by experi- 
ence, must give the rule. On the subject of sleep, 
as a means in physical education, a few remarks will 
be offered hereafter. 

The passions of children, if indulged, are growing 
evils. Hence they should be vigilantly held in 
check, from the earliest period. If not thus re- 
strained, they become noxious weeds in the garden 
of the mind, deprive vakiable plants of their nourish- 
ment, and blight them- with their shadow. To speak 
in language better suited to my subject; if, instead 
of being curbed, they are fed and fostered, they be- 
come the ruling elements of character, and insure to 
the individual a life of trouble — -not to say of acci- 
dent, disease, and suffering. A large proportion of 
the evils of life, as respects both health and fortune, 
is the product, more or less directly, of unruly pas- 
sions. The higher and milder virtues, social as well 



PHYSICAL EDUCATION. 41 

as moral, cannot flourish under their dominion. Tn 
a special manner, children should never be allowed 
to obtain what has once been denied them, by break- 
ing into a passion about it. Such an act ought to be 
always visited by a positive privation of the thing 
desired. And the ground of the denial should be 
made known to them. Never let a child have rea- 
son to believe, that a gust of passion is a suitable 
means to gratify a wish. Teach him, as far as pos- 
sible, to know and feel the reverse. And, should he 
become offended at a pet or a play-thing, neither 
beat it yourself, nor allow him to beat it, by way of 
pacification or revenge. Such procedure is aliment 
to vindictiveness, and leads to mischief — perhaps, in 
the end, to maiming and murder. As relates to 
matters of this kind, ignorant and passionate nurses 
are among the worst of family nuisances. They 
often blow into a flame the sparks of passion, which, 
without their aid, would have slumbered and gone 
out. These may be deemed small and trivial mat- 
ters. In themselves, they are so ; but not in their 
consequences. Let it never be forgotten, that ' little 
things are great to little men ;' and more especially, 
to little children. A fiery education, in the nursery, 
may heat the brain to the verge of inflammation, and 
aid in the production of actual inflammation or mad- 
ness — impair health, in sundry other ways, by exces- 
sive excitement, render unhappy the days of others, 
as well as of the mismanaged individual, and lay the 
foundation of a blasted reputation. It is believed 
that an education of this kind injured immeasurably 
4* 



42 PHYSICAL EDUCATION. 

the late Lord Byron ; and Earl Ferrers expiated on 
a gibbet, the fruit of a similar one. 

But it is not what is called the temper, that is 
alone injured by a nursery education unskilfully 
conducted. Habits of deception, falsehood, and 
even theft are not un frequently encouraged and 
formed by it. This can scarcely fail to lead to 
serious mischief; it being the natural course of 
things, that seeds sown in infancy yield fruit in ma- 
turer years. The slightest disposition, therefore, in 
children, to deviate from truth and candor, either 
in words or actions, or to appropriate, as their own, 
what does not belong to them, should be promptly 
suppressed. It arises from irregular action in cer- 
tain organs of the brain, which, if not checked, runs 
to excess, and turns to a moral disease. The 
organs referred to belong to the animal class, and, 
being thus exercised, become so powerful and re- 
fractory, as to be no longer under the control of the 
moral and reflecting organs \ and the elements of 
vice, are finally rooted in the constitution with such 
firmness, as to frustrate all attempts to remove them. 
So important is early training to the character of our 
race ; yet so lamentably is it neglected and abused ! 
In such cases, health of body suffers in common 
with soundness of mind, the undue exercise of the 
animal organs of the brain being hostile to both. In 
fine ; the regulation of the nursery, though too gen- 
erally intrusted to ignorance and thoughtlessness, is 
a charge of great importance, imposing a responsi- 
bility far more weighty, than it is usually considered. 



PHYSICAL EDUCATION. 43 

Too often are those, who are fit for little else, con- 
verted into nursery girls. 

The teething of children, is a process requiring 
some attention. Provided, however, health be oth- 
erwise maintained, it is much less dangerous, than it 
is usually considered. The only reason, why the 
young of the human race do not cut their teeth with 
as little difficulty and suffering, as those of the infe- 
rior animals, is, because they are rendered, by the 
treatment they receive, especially by improprieties 
in diet, unnaturally tender and sensitive. Gastric 
and constitutional derangement is the chief cause, 
not only why infants do not cut their teeth with 
ease, and without sickness, but also why they suffer 
so much from diseases of them, in after life. More 
attention to general health, than is now paid, not 
alone during infantile and youthful, but likewise dur- 
ing adult age, even to the close of life, would greatly 
limit the business of the dentist. To the cleanliness 
of the teeth and gums of children, strict attention 
should be paid. 

It need scarcely be observed, that, as a prevent- 
ive of small-pox, children should be vaccinated, at 
an early age. The practice, therefore, may be re- 
garded as an important element of nursery educa- 
tion. The neglect or improper procrastination of it, 
devolves on parents a responsibility as weighty as 
almost any other respecting infants, of which they 
can be guilty. 

As already mentioned, however, these things 
affect you, as teachers, but remotely ; yet they do 



44 PHYSICAL EDUCATION. 

affect you : because your profession calls you to 
witness their products, and to remedy, as far as possi- 
ble, the mischief they have done. The pupil of the 
nursery, carries, as the fruit of his tuition there, a 
given character into your schools. And that char- 
acter accords with his previous training. I doubt 
iiot that many of you have learned to read and deci- 
pher, in children, a correct record, and one not easi- 
ly mistaken or forgotten, of the family government 
of their parents. Were fathers and mothers apprized 
of the fact, that their offspring are correct inform- 
ants, at the bar of the public, of what they daily see, 
and hear, and experience at home, a sense of repu- 
tation alone, in the absence of -higher motives, would 
induce them to amend their domestic discipline. 
Such at least ought to be its effect. Children trained 
to obedience and attention, in their own dwellings, 
will not, when they enter seats of instruction, leave 
those valuable qualities behind them. But, if they 
are neglected by their parents, they can scarcely 
fail to be strangers, as well to a sense of duty and 
decorum, as to the practice of them. In fine, when 
children are irregular, vicious, or even sickly, the 
fault and the misfortune are, in a much higher de- 
gree, than is usually imagined, attributable to the 
neglect or mismanagement of those, who have had 
the superintendence of them. You are prepared, I 
am confident, to concur with me, in the sentiment, 
that some of the greatest difficulties experienced in 
schools, as relates to every branch of education, 
arise from the faults of domestic discipline. Let 



PHYSICAL EDUCATION. 45 

parents and guardians do their duty, and the busir 
ness of school tuition will be not only facilitated, but 
enhanced in its usefulness. 

Children ought not to be too soon dismissed from 
an education exclusively domestic. They ought not, 
I mean, to be sent to school at too early an age. A 
practice the contrary of this, threatens to be produc- 
tive of serious, not to say irreparable mischief. Pa- 
rents are often too anxious that their children should 
have a knowledge of the alphabet, of spelling, read- 
ing, geography, and other branches of school-learn- 
ing, at a very early age. This is worse than tempt- 
ing them to walk too early, because the organjikely 
to be injured by it, is much more important than the 
muscles and bones of the lower extremities. It may 
do irremediable mischief to the brain. That viscus 
is yet too immature and feeble, to sustain fatigue. 
Until from the sixth to the eighth year of life, the 
seventh being perhaps the proper medium, all its 
energies are necessary for its own healthy develop- 
ment, and that of the other portions of the system. 
Nor ought they to be diverted, by serious study, to 
any other purpose. True— ^-exercise is as essential 
to the health and vigor of the brain, at that time of 
life, as at any other \ but it should be the general 
and pleasurable exercise of observation and action. 
It ought not to be the compulsory exercise of tasks. 
Early prodigies of mind, rarely attain mature distinc- 
tion. The reason is plain. Their brains are injured 
by premature toil, and their general health impaired. 
From an unwise attempt to convert, at once, their 



46 PHYSICAL EDUCATION. 

flowery spring into a luxuriant summer, that sum- 
mer, too often, never arrives. The blossom with- 
ers, ere the fruit is formed. For these reasons, I 
have never been an advocate of ' Infant Schools.' 
Unless they are conducted with great discretion, 
they cannot fail to eventuate in mischief. They 
should be nothing but schools of pleasurable exer- 
cise, having little to do with books. 

As those institutions are now administered, they 
are serious evils. The passion in favor of them, be- 
coming more extensive in its prevalence, and acquir- 
ing daily greater intensity, is among the alarming 
portents of the time. It is founded on the want of 
a correct knowledge of the human constitution, and 
of the amount of labor its different organs can sus- 
tain with safety, at the different periods of life. 
Perhaps I should rather say, it is founded on the 
fallacious belief, that it is the infant's mind alone, 
that labors in acquiring school learning, and not any 
organized portion of his body. This is an error, 
which, if not corrected, will prove fatal to hundreds 
of thousands, of the human race. It is not the mind, 
but the brain, the master organ of the system, essen- 
tial to the well-being and efficiency of every other 
part of it, that toils and is oppressed in the studies 
of the school. Nor, tender and feeble as it is, is it 
possible for it to endure the labor often imposed on 
it, without sustaining irreparable injury— ?an injury 
no less subversive of mental than of corporeal sound<- 
ness and vigor. 

Were parents fully sensible of this, (a truth which 



PHYSICAL EDUCATION. 47 

Phrenology alone can teach them,) they would no 
longer overload the brains of their mere babes with 
study, any more than they would their half organ- 
ized muscles and joints with unmerciful burdens of 
brick and mortar. They would even know that the 
latter, would be the least destructive practice of the 
two. Under such circumstances, we should hear 
no more of the ' Boy's Book,' and the ' Girl's Book,' 
and the ? Child's Own Book,' with such other slip- 
shod, catch-penny trash, as now encumbers our 
bookstores and parlors. These would all be ex- 
changed for the Book of Nature, which is, truly, the 
' Child's Own Book ;' and which, being traced for 
that purpose, by the Divinity himself, is faultlessly 
prepared. 

Instead of seeing infants confined to inaction in 
crowded school-rooms, with saddened looks, moist 
eyes, and aching heads, we should then meet them 
in gardens and lawns, groves and pleasure-grounds, 
breathing wholesome air, leaping, laughing, shouting, 
cropping flowers, pursuing butterflies, collecting and 
looking at curious and beautiful insects and stones, 
listening to bird-songs, singing themselves, admiring 
the bright blue arch of the heavens, or gazing at the 
thickening folds of the thunder-cloud, and doing all 
other things fitted to promote health, develope and 
strengthen their frames, and prepare them for the 
graver business of after-life. And, instead of pale 
faces, flaccid flesh, and wasted bodies, we should 
find them with ruddy cheeks, firm muscles, and full 
and well-rounded limbs. 



48 PHYSICAL EDUCATION. 

Exercises and pastimes such as these, constitute 
the only 'Infant School' that deserves to be encour- 
aged ; nor will any other sort receive encourage- 
ment, when the business of education shall be thor- 
oughly understood. The brain of infants will be 
then no longer neglected, as a mass of matter of little 
importance ; skin, muscle, and bone, being thought 
preferable to it. On the contrary, it will be viewed, 
in its true character, as the ruling organ of the body, 
and the apparatus of the mind, and its training will 
receive the attention it merits. I repeat,— and the 
repetition should be persevered in, until its truth be 
acknowledged, and reduced to practice, — : that most 
of the evils of education, under which the world has 
so long suffered, and is still suffering, arise from the 
mistaken belief, thatj in what is called moral and in- 
tellectual education, it is the mind that is exercised, 
and not the brain. Nor will the evils cease, and 
education be made perfect, until the error shall be 
exploded. Knowing nothing of the nature of mind, 
and supposing it to be, as a spirit, somewhat impas- 
sive, we are neither apprized nor apprehensive, that 
any degree of action will impair it. Indeed we can 
form no conception of an injury done to it, as a sep- 
arate essence. Perhaps the most rational belief is, 
that it can suffer none. But the case is different, 
as respects organized matter. We witness, daily, 
injuries done to it, by injudicious exercise. Nor is 
there perhaps any portion of it so easily or ruinously 
deranged by excessive action, as the brain, especially 
the half-formed and highly susceptible brain of 



PHYSICAL EDUCATION. 49 

Infants. Let this truth be realized, and faithfully and 
skilfully acted on, and human suffering from hydro- 
cephalus, rickets, phrenitis, idiocy, epilepsy, mad- 
ness, and other cerebral affections will be greatly 
diminished. It. would be infinitely wiser and better, 
to employ suitable persons to superintend the exer- 
cises and amusements of children, under seven years 
of age, in the fields, orchards and meadows, and 
point out to them the riches and beauties of nature, 
than to have them immured in crowded school- 
rooms, in a state of inaction, poring over torn books 
and primers, conning words of whose meaning they 
are ignorant, and breathing foul air. 

After these remarks on what falls more especially 
within the province of others, I shall now consider 
briefly a few of those points of physical education, 
in which you, as instructers, have an immediate con- 
cern. 

Having hitherto intentionally omitted it, I find 
it necessary to my purpose now, to observe, that the 
human body is composed of a variety of sets of or- 
gans, some of which are so predominant in their 
influence, as to assimilate the condition of the others 
to their own. They exercise, also, a powerful influ- 
ence over one another. If one of them be derang- 
ed, it deranges the others ; and if either of them be 
healthy and vigorous, the soundness of the others 
may be considered, on that account, the more se- 
cure. Of the control of all and either of them over 
the rest of the body, the same is true. If they be 
sound, it is sound ; if diseased, it is diseased. — To 
5 



\f\ 



50 PHYSICAL EDUCATION. 

execute the task of physical education, then, it is 
necessary, chiefly, so to watch and regulate them, 
as to keep them unimpaired. 

The organs alluded to, as possessing a predomi- 
nance, are, the skin, the digestive system, composed 
of the stomach, liver, pancreas, intestines, and lacte- 
als; the blood-making and blood-circulating system, 
made up of the heart, lungs, and blood-vessels j and 
the cerebral and nervous system, comprising the 
brain, spinal cord, and nerves. The muscular sys- 
tem is also important, not only in itself, but as con- 
tributing, by its functions, to the perfection of the 
others. Physical education, as an aggregate, then, 
consists in the proper education of these several sets 
of organs. Train them in the best manner, and to 
the highest pitch, and the individual has attained his 
highest perfection. 

Of the education of the skin, I have already spoken, 
under the heads of cleanliness, clothing, and tem- 
perature ; for the chief action of temperature is on 
that organ. On these points, therefore, I have but 
little to add. The same attention to them required 
in the nursery, is required in the school. The tem- 
perature of school-rooms should be comfortable, in 
all sorts of weather, and the cleanliness and clothing 
of pupils such as may best contribute to the health 
of the skin. The rooms themselves should also be 
clean. The covering of all children, especially 
of delicate ones, had better be too warm than 
too cool. And pupils should never be allowed to 
sit in school, with their clothes and feet wet, or 



PHYSICAL EDUCATION. 51 

even damp. The most vigorous constitutions have 
suffered from such exposure. Persons may exercise 
with impunity, in damp clothing, and with wet feet ; 
but not sit still. Nor should children be exposed to 
currents of air in school-rooms. They would be safer 
out of doors, than under the action of such a cause. 
The education of the digestive organs has been 
briefly noticed, under the head- of die*. It is matter 
of regret to me, that time does not permit me to en- 
large on it, as it is infinitely important in physical 
education. Long-lived individuals are generally re- 
markable for the soundness of their stomachs. Ma- 
ny of them have never experienced nausea, and 
rarely an impaired appetite. Improprieties in diet 
are the most fruitful source of the diseases of chil- 
dren. Nor are they much less so to those of riper 
age. Eating too much, and of unwholesome arti- 
cles, is a national evil in the United States; and 
were I to add, a national disgrace, the charge would 
scarcely be too severe. Do you ask me whether it 
is more so in the United States than elsewhere? I 
answer, Yes ; and the reason is manifest. Such is 
our happy condition, did we not abuse it, that it is 
much easier to procure the means of indulging to 
excess, in the United States, than in any other 
country. And experience, in common with history, 
teaches us, that mankind are prone to the gratifica- 
tion of the palate, and other animal appetites, in pro- 
portion to the facilities of indulgence they enjoy. I 
confidently believe, that the thirteen or fourteen 
millions of people, inhabiting this country, eat more 



52 PHYSICAL EDUCATION. 

trash, for amusement, and fashion's sake, arid to 
pass away idle time, than half the inhabitants of 
Europe united. Unquestionably they consume a 
greater amount of such articles, in the proportion of 
five to one, than an equal number of the people of 
any other country I have ever visited. Shame, if 
not prudence, should drive them from a practice, 
which might well be called disgusting. No wonder 
that European travellers ridicule us on account of it. 
In a special manner should children and youth be 
guarded from its influence, calculated as it is, to 
weaken their constitutions, and injure their intel- 
lects, and thus reduce the men of America below 
the standard he would otherwise attain. Nor will 
human nature ever reach the perfection our fine cli- 
mate, abundance of wholesome food, entire freedom 
of mind and body, and other favorable influences 
belonging to our country, would bestow on it, unless 
the evil be remedied. For, that the Americans 
have it in their power, if they be true to themselves^ 
and use, with wisdom, the advantages they enjoy, to 
become, bodily and meutally, the most perfect peo- 
ple the world has produced, might be easily shown, 
had I leisure to sum up the evidence which presents 
itself. 

It is well known to every teacher, that children 
are comparatively dull, after dinner, and often sleep 
over their tasks. Why ? Because they have dined 
on improper food, or eaten to excess of that which 
is proper. In such a case, the exercise of the 
brain, or of the mind, if the latter word be pre- 



PHYSICAL EDUCATION. 53 

ferred, proves injurious, by producing indigestion. 
It expends, in the organ of thought, that portion of 
vitality, which should now centre in the stomach, to 
enable it to master the enemy within it — to convert 
the oppressive load of food it has received into 
chyme, and prepare it for chyle. Daily assaults of 
this sort on the brain, (especially the tender brain 
of children, which is not yet completely organized,) 
by errors in diet, cannot fail to do it permanent mis- 
chief. But, as already observed, the regulation of 
the diet of children belongs chiefly to family gov 
ernment. As respects the serious evils, however, 
arising from errors committed in it, teachers should 
be neither inattentive nor silent. Due representa- 
tions and remonstrances, made by them to parents 
and guardians, might be productive of good. They 
have a better opportunity than most other persons, 
to witness the unfavorable effect, which the practice 
objected to, produces on the mind. 

Those organs of the body, to which the attention 
of teachers should be more immediately and earnest- 
ly directed, are the lungs, the heart and blood-ves- 
sels, the muscles of voluntary motion, and the brain 
and nerves. 

The chief measure requisite, in the education of 
the lungs, is the procurement, for pupils, of a com- 
petent supply of salubrious atmospherical air. And 
I need scarcely add, that to remain salubrious, it 
must be regularly changed. Independently of any 
deleterious impregnation it may receive, stagnation 
alone injures air, as certainly as water. The object 
5* 



54 PHYSICAL EDUCATION". 

here referred to, involves the most important consid- 
erations, as it is impossible for health to be secured 
without it. The attainment of it depends principally 
on the site and construction of school-edifices. The 
buildings should stand in elevated, dry, and healthy 
positions, remote from swamps, and low, humid,, 
alluvial soil. Or, if there be such nuisances in the 
vicinity, rows of bushy trees should run between 
them and the houses ; the latter being erected on 
the windward side ; on that side, I mean, over 
which the prevailing winds of summer and autumn 
pass, before they reach the miasmatic ground. On 
no account, if it can be avoided, should a school- 
house stand in a flat, damp, alluvial situation. And 
should there be no preventive of this, let the edifice 
be erected on an artificial hillock, or in some other 
way elevated fifteen or twenty feet above the level 
of the ground. By this means, the pupils being 
placed beyond the reach of the miasm that may be 
formed below them, will breathe a wholesome at- 
mosphere. A stagnant atmosphere, however, as 
already mentioned, cannot long remain wholesome, 
more especially if it be charged with animal exhala- 
tions. To prevent, therefore, in schools, these two 
sources of mischief, the rooms should never be 
crowded, and ought to be so constructed, that their 
ventilation may be perfect, without rendering their 
temperature uncomfortable in cold weather. This 
state of things, so highly desirable, and so easily at- 
tained, is not usually found in houses of instruction, 
for junior pupils. On the contrary, the rooms are, 



PHYSICAL EDUCATION. 55 

for the most part, crowded, sometimes jammed with 
children, too hot in winter, when the windows are 
closed, and too cold, and swept by currents of chil- 
ling air, when they are open. In such places, deli- 
cate children, especially if their lungs be more than 
commonly sensitive, can scarcely fail to contract 
disease. Or, should they escape actual disease, their 
delicacy and feebleness will be increased. For the 
preservation of health and vigor, when possessed, 
and their restoration, when lost, a supply of salubri- 
ous air is as necessary to the lungs, as a supply of 
sound and nutritious aliment is to the stomach. The 
one is not more essential to the production of healthy 
chyle, than the other is to the formation of healthy 
blood. And we shall endeavor to show presently r 
that, without such blood, not a single function be- 
longing to man, whether it be physical, intellectual, 
or moral, can be in unimpaired health and perfec- 
tion. For, heterodox as the sentiment may proba- 
bly appear to some persons, it is, notwithstanding, 
true, that florid, well vitalized arterial blood, is as 
necessary to give full vigor to the intellectual and 
moral powers of the philosopher, statesman, and 
patriot, as it is to paint the roses on the virgin's 
cheek, and the coral on her lip. The reason is 
plain. That they may be in the best condition to 
perform their functions, the intellectual and moral 
organs, like other portions of the body, require a 
supply of well-prepared blood. And to form such 
blood is the province of the lungs, using, as their 
principal means, unadulterated atmospherical air. 



56 PHYSICAL EDUCATION. 

But no room, even moderately filled with human 
beings, can retain a pure atmosphere, however judi- 
ciously it may be constructed for ventilation. Chil- 
dren, therefore, should be confined in such a place, 
but a few hours at a time, and not many hours in 
the entire day. That they may enjoy perfect 
health, a considerable portion of their time should 
be passed in the open air. There, the food of their 
lungs will be wholesome, and their respiration free , 
and they will derive from that function, all the ben- 
efit it is calculated to bestow. 

Another useful measure, in the education of the 
lungs, is, for pupils to practise declamation and 
singing. Such training strengthens those organs, as 
certainly as suitable exercise strengthens the mus- 
cles; and it does it on the same ground. I again 
repeat, and it can hardly be too often repeated, that 
it is well-directed exercise alone, that invigorates 
and improves every form of living matter. Its effect 
thus to invigorate and improve, constitutes one of 
its most important laws. Nor is its ameliorating in- 
fluence confined to living matter. It improves dead 
matter also. By judicious use, a bow grows better, 
and to the improvement of violins, flutes, organs, 
pianos, and other musical instruments, by being 
skilfully played on, all experience testifies. 

As respects the salutary influence of singing, 
declamation, and other forms of loud speaking, on 
the lungs, Dr. Rush often said, and perhaps has 
left the fact on record, that, in the experience of a 
long life, he had never known a singing-schoolmaster, 



PHYSICAL EDUCATION. 57 

an auction-crier, a watchman who called the hours 
of the night, or an oysterman, who cried his com- 
modity through the streets, to be attacked by pul- 
monary consumption. The influence of declama- 
tion, by the sea-shore, amidst the roar of the surf, in 
strengthening the lungs of Demosthenes, might be 
cited, as testifying to the same effect. 

The mere formation of good blood, however, is 
not alone sufficient to satisfy all the demands of the 
system. That fluid must be also circulated actively 
to every portion of the body, else the purposes of 
vigorous health are not subserved by it. To this 
end, the free and competent action of the heart is 
essential ; and to that again, voluntary muscular ac- 
tion is no less so. However useful, well vitalized 
arterial blood is, as a stimulant, to excite the left 
side of the heart to the requisite degree of motion, 
experience proves that it is not alone sufficient for 
the purpose. Every one knows, that when he is 
motionless, his pulse is slow and comparatively feeble, 
contrasted with itself, when he is engaged in exer- 
cise. So is his respiration. Even when our exer- 
cise is moderate, we inspire a. third or fourth oftener, 
in a given time, than we do, when we are still. Our 
inspirations are also deeper and fuller. More air 
therefore is received, in an equal period, into the 
lungs. But, other things being alike, the larger the 
volume of air that enters those organs is, the more 
completely is the blood vitalized and matured ; and, 
if correspondingly circulated, the more efficiently 
does it contribute to the perfection of every function 



58 PHYSICAL EDUCATION. 

of the system. Hence the health, vivacity, strength, 
and florid complexions of persons, whether children 
or adults, who exercise and respire freely in the 
open air, and the comparative paleness, delicate 
health, languor, and weakness of those, who pass 
their time in a state of inaction, even in the most 
spacious and comfortable dwellings. This truih is 
amply illustrated and confirmed, by contrasting the 
agriculturalist, who labors in the field, or the hunter, 
who roams the forest, with the secluded man of let- 
ters, or with the manufacturer, who closely pursues 
his occupation in a small and ill ventilated work- 
shop. 

In all parts of the world, and under all circum- 
stances, highly studious and literary men have infirm 
health. The reason is plain. They exercise their 
brains too much, and their muscles, hearts and 
lungs, too little. Hence the whole frame is first de- 
bilitated, and ultimately deranged. The lungs and 
heart failing somewhat in their functions, the brain 
does not receive a sufficient amount of well-vitalized 
blood. Its vigor is diminished, therefore, by a two- 
fold cause ; exhaustion from its excessive labors, 
and a defective supply of sound arterial blood, which 
is its vital food. Though, in a given time, then, a 
literary man may accomplish a greater amount of 
work, by inordinate and unremitting cerebral toil, 
he cannot do it so well. In a particular manner, 
the product of his mind will have less brilliancy and 
power. It will be like the fruit of advanced age, 
contrasted with that of the meridian of life— like the 



PHYSICAL EDUCATION* 59 

Odyssey of Homer, compared to the Iliad, or Mil- 
ton's Paradise Regained, to his Paradise Lost. 
Another cause of the infirm health of literary men 
is, that they eat too much, or indulge in food too 
difficult of digestion. This renders them dyspeptic. 
Their stomachs being debilitated, in common with 
their other organs, the diet used by them should 
be of the most digestible kind ; and it should be 
taken sparingly. Let such characters take more 
muscular exercise in the open air, and eat less ; and 
they will enjoy much more health of body, and vigor 
and productiveness of mind. 

As heretofore mentioned, light itself, which acts 
on us more freely, and to better effect, without 
doors than within, is friendly to both vegetable and 
animal perfection. Shut up in entire darkness, 
either man, quadrupeds, or birds, and you injure and 
enfeeble them. Casper Hauser, Baron Trenck, and 
many other persons that might be named, furnish 
memorable examples of this. Partial darkness, 
therefore, must produce on them an effect differing 
only in degree. It has been observed, that, other 
things being equal, dark work- shops, are less salubri- 
ous than w e ll-ligh te d ones. To the perfection of 
our race, then, liberal exercise in the open air — a 
much larger amount of it than is taken by children 
at school, especially female children — is essential. 
Never will mankind attain the high standard, either 
bodily or mental, of which they are susceptible, un- 
til females, not only while children, but also during 



60 PHYSICAL EDUCATION. 

adult life, take more and freer exercise, out of 
doors, than they do at present. I do not mean that 
they ought to run foot-races, wrestle, spar, fence, 
vault over six-bar gates, or in any other way hoiden 
it. Such masculine feats would suit neither their 
taste, delicacy, nor intended pursuits ; nor are they 
requisite. No : I mean, that they should, as a duty 
to themselves, their contemporaries, and posterity, 
indulge in graceful and becoming exercise, in the 
streets, gardens, fields, lawns, roads, and pleasure- 
grounds, to a sufficient extent, to invigorate their 
frames, heighten their beauty, and strengthen their 
intellects. Should they even climb lofty bills, and 
craggy mountains, breathe the pure air, and enjoy 
the spirit-stirring and inspiring prospects they afford, 
the excursions would be beneficial both to body and 
mind. For, 1 repeat, that exercise, judiciously di- 
rected and indulged in, improves the latter, as cer- 
tainly as the former. Walking then is one excellent 
form of exercise for females, and riding on horse- 
back is another. It is praiseworthy in them, more- 
ever, to learn to walk elegantly, because graceful 
motion adds to their accomplishments, and increases 
their attractiveness. The air of Josephine, in walk- 
ing, was fascination ; and an American lady, now in 
London, threw a spell over royalty, by the grace of 
her movement, in quitting the drawing-room. But, 
by elegance in walking, I do not mean primness, 
mincingness, or any thing artificial. Far from it. 
Let all be natural ; but nature should be cultivated 
and improved. Let ladies afford reason to have 



PHYSICAL EDUCATION. 61 

said of them, what the poet of Abbottsford said of 
his Ellen Douglass. — 

1 A foot more light, a step more true, 
'Ne'er from the heath-flower brushed the dew, 
'E'en the slight hare-bell reared its head, 
' Elastic from her airy tread.' .«» *ti$i 

In truth, that same lovely Ellen, though reared on a 
secluded island, amidst the highlands of Scotland, 
was mistress of many other attributes, several of 
them the mere result of health, and that health the 
product of lake and mountain exercise, which the 
most high-bred and courtly female might be excused 
for envying. For the same poet, who, had he writ- 
ten nothing else, has immortalized himself, by im- 
mortalizing her, farther tells us, that, — 

' Ne'er did Grecian chisel trace 

' A nymph, a naiad, or a grace, 

' With finer form, or lovelier face. 

1 What, though the sun, with ardent frown, 

' Had slightly tinged her cheek with brown, 

' The sportive toil which short and light, 

' Had dyed her glowing hue so bright, 

e Served too, in hastier swell to show, 

' Short glimpses of a breast of snow. 

'And seldom o'er abreast so fair 

' Mantled a plaid with modest care ; 

' And never brooch the folds combined 

4 Above a heart more good and kind. 

' Her kindness and her worth to spy, 

' You need but look in Ellen's eye ; 

e Not Katrine, in her mirror blue, 

' Gives back the shaggy banks more true, 

' Than every freeborn glance confessed, 

' The guileless movements of her breast; 

' Whether joy sparkled in her eye, 

6 



62 PHYSICAL EDUCATION, 

* Or wo or pity claimed a sigh, J 
( Or filial love was glowing there, 

' Or meek devotion poured a prayer^ 
' Or tale of injury called forth 

* The indignant spirit of the north. — 
1 One only passion unrevealed, 

' With maiden pride the maid concealed/ 
{ Yet not less purely felt the flame — 
1 O ! need I tell that passion's name ! ' 

Carriage-riding is, at best, a semi-sedentary occu- 
pation, and does but little good, in imparting strength. 
A lady possessed of a fine figure, who dresses with 
taste, and rides gracefully, never appears to more 
advantage, than when seated on an elegant and well 
gaited horse. Nor can she indulge in a more salu- 
tary mode of exercise. For younger females, it is 
equally beneficial. As riding on horseback, more- 
over, requires some boldness of spirit, the practice 
tends to lessen that female timidity, which is often 
inconvenient and injurious to its possessors, as well 
as to others. However desirable sensibility may be, 
in a reasonable degree, like all other qualities, it 
may become excessive, turn to evil, and impair 
health. Experience teaches us that it often does 
so, especially in feeble persons, in whom it is most 
prone to become inordinate, on account of their fee- 
bleness. To restrain it, therefore, so as to hold it 
within due bounds, by invigorating exercise, and 
judicious exposure to something bordering on dan- 
ger, or at least resembling it, is an end that should 
be constantly aimed at, in the physical education 
of females — and also of males, who have any thing of 



PHYSICAL EDUCATION. 63 

feminine susceptibility in their temperaments. Peter 
the Great had an instinctive dread of water, of which 
he was cured, by being repeatedly precipitated into 
rivers. On the same principles, Frederick III. had 
a troublesome excess of sensitiveness obliterated. 

That it may be useful, in the highest degree, ex- 
ercise ought not to be very severe. It should not 
amount to labor or straining. A form of it so vio- 
lent, if it does no actual organic mischief, diminishes 
vitality, by an excessive expenditure of it, instead of 
augmenting it. Like excess in every thing else, it 
is wrong and injurious, because of its excess. Hence, 
some of the violent gymnastic exploits, practised oc- 
casionally in seats of learning, are better calculated 
to do harm than good. Though they produce salu- 
tary action in some of the muscles, they strain, ex- 
haust, and injure others. Those who take exercise, 
for the sake of health and vigor, especially if they be 
delicate, should never carry it so far, either in vio- 
lence or duration, as to induce fatigue. In a higher 
or lower degree, that is dangerous, and may prove 
the cause of actual sickness. The manual-labor 
system connected with some schools, is not only 
more useful in its objects, but better fitted to sub- 
serve health, than the common gymnastic one. 
Still, the moderate and graceful gymnastic exercises 
are so useful, and desirable, as the source of accom- 
plishments, that I should regret their abolishment. 
One of the best forms of them is that of the sword, 
especially the small sword. It is, at once, elegant, 



64 PHYSICAL EDUCATION. 

invigorating, and manly, giving fine play to all the 
principal muscles of the body. 

Nor does it, as some imagine, foster a propensity 
to combat and blood. Far from it. That feeling 
belongs only to the bully and the ruffian. While a 
knowledge of the art of defence increases personal 
firmness and self-reliance, in cases of difficulty and 
danger, it is usually accompanied by a pacific tem- 
per, and a gentlemanly disposition. Nor can it well 
be otherwise. A fencing-school, properly conduct- 
ed, is a place of polished courtesy, and therefore an 
institution peculiarly fitted for the cultivation of a 
graceful deportment, suavity of manners, and amen- 
ity of disposition.- — Football and handball are useful 
exercises. So is swimming, when it can be properly 
practised. Besides giving vigor to the muscles, the 
latter contributes to health, by promoting cleanliness. 
It need scarcely be added, that the action of salt 
water on the skin, when it can be had, is considered 
preferable to that of fresh. It is a current and prob- 
ably a well-founded belief, that habitual sea-bathing 
cooperates with the purity of a marine atmosphere 
in bestowing on islanders their unbroken healthfulness 
and great longevity. 

As an in-door exercise, for both males and 
females, nothing is superior to dancing. Besides 
the grace of movement, which it teaches, it gives 
action and excitement to the whole frame, the music 
and social intercourse contributing their part to the 
general effect. ; If it sometimes does mischief, by 
being carried to excess, — that is an abuse of it, and 



PHYSICAL EDUCATION. 65 

does not justly bring reproach on its proper use, or 
furnish evidence that it ought to be discarded. As 
well might the use of food be discarded, because 
many persons abuse it, by eating too much. Ten 
thousand people injure themselves by the abuse of 
eating, for one who does so, by that of dancing. 
The exercise of swinging by the arms, if judiciously 
practised, is beneficial, especially to those who have 
weak chests. So is that of the dumb-bells, with 
various others, to which time does not allow me to 
refer. 

It is of moment to observe, that severe exercise 
should never be taken during hot weather, or imme- 
diately after a plentiful meal. In the former case, 
the excitement of the exercise, added to that of the 
heat, has double force in exhausting vitality, and 
weakening the body ; and, in the latter, too much 
cerebral influence, for the time, being expended in 
muscular action, the amount of it conveyed to the 
stomach is insufficient for the laborious function 
that viscus has to perform ; and indigestion is the 
consequence. This fact constitutes the foundation 
of the Spaniard's Siesta, and of the repose, which, 
under the guidance of instinct, most of the inferior 
animals take after a copious repast. On the same 
ground, the savage of our forests, after overgorging 
himself, often consumes a natural day in the sleep of 
digestion. But it is a dreamy sleep, the brain being 
disturbed by the toils of the stomach. It is the 
source of those visions of war and hunting, which, 
6* 



66 PHYSICAL EDUCATION. 



© 



occurring in a brave, are often received as premoni- 
tions to action. 

Such are some of the useful effects of muscular 
exercise, but not the whole of them. To speak 
summarily of it. By its aid, in maturing, vitalizing, 
and circulating the blood, that form of exercise con- 
tributes to the vitality of the whole system, to the 
size and tone of every organ, and the soundness and 
vigor of every function of it, the moral and intellec- 
tual ones not excepted. Nor is this all. Added to 
its enlarging and strengthening the muscles them- 
selves, it gives them a promptitude and an adroitness 
of action, important in most of the concerns of life. 
What is man, without a vigorous and well-trained 
system of muscles ? — instruments which he can turn 
with ease and effect, to any occupation, in which his 
fortune may summon him to engage ? — which he can 
apply, at will, to matters of business, pastime, or 
pleasure ? Without such muscular discipline and 
power, he would be wretched in himself, and a 
cipher in the world. Nor is the whole yet told. 
Elegance and symmetry of person, beauty of com- 
plexion, vivacity and force of expression^ grace of 
motion, and all else that is attractive in human na- 
ture, depend, in a high degree, on well-directed 
muscular exercise. 

Much is said about matter being a clog on mind ; 
and that the soul is incarcerated within the body, 
like a prisoner in his cell. The sentiment is as im- 
pious, as it is untrue. Matter clog and incarcerate 
mind, and prevent it from acting in a manner suita- 



PHYSICAL EDUCATION. 67 

ble to its powers ! The assertion is a slander on 
Him who made and governs both mind and matter. 
If the inferior substance be thus prejudicial to the 
superior, and so unworthy of it, as many pronounce 
it, why did the Deity link them together ? No good 
motive could have led him to this ; and who will 
dare to charge him with an evil one ? Did he unite 
them through inadvertence or mistake, or because 
he did not know what influence matter would have 
on mind, until he had made the experiment ? or, did 
they, when created, rush together forcibly, he hav- 
ing no power to restrain them ? Did he yoke them, 
in sport and wantonness, that they might fall to civil 
war, and try which could do the other most harm, he 
enjoying their strife and suffering, as an amusement? 
or, was his motive a desire to show, how unharmoni- 
ously and incongruously he could pack the works of 
creation together ? No one will openly impute to 
him faults or weaknesses like these. Yet all virtu- 
ally do that, or something worse, who pronounce 
matter a hindrance to mind, in any of its operations, 
For aught that man can show to the contrary, mind 
would be as imbecile without matter, as matter 
would be, without mind. What can the latter do, 
without the aid of the former ? Can it see, hear, taste, 
smell, feel, or move ? Can it lift a pound weight, 
make a pin or a pen, or use them if already made, 
think, reason, judge, or perform a single useful act, 
intellectual or moral, theoretical or practical ? If it 
can, let that act be specified and proved. I say 
( proved,' because I wish for realities, not supposi- 



68 PHYSICAL EDUCATION. 

tions, or fancies. I know we are told that the mind 
can do wonders, without the body— that it can trav- 
erse all space, with more than lightning's speed — 
outstrip light, in journeying from world to world, to 
study and enjoy the beauties, sublimities, and gran- 
deur of the universe — that, if disencumbered of the 
shackles of matter, all creation would be subject to 
its inspection, ministering immediately to its informa- 
tion and delight — all these things, and many more, 
are told to us. But they are only told. They are 
not proved. Far from it. The contrary is proved, 
by evidence which we cannot doubt. All that the 
mind has any knowledge of, is matter. Of spirit, as 
already stated, it knows nothing. And all the 
means it employs to acquire knowledge, are matter. 
It sees with a material eye, hears with a material 
ear, thinks with a material brain, and moves, from 
place to place, in quest of information and pleasure, 
with material muscles and bones. Every imple- 
ment, moreover, in addition to those received from 
nature, which it uses, either in science or art, are of 
matter. The mechanician works with matter, on 
matter. The chemist analyzes matter, by matter. 
The navigator triumphs by matter, over the world 
of waters, which are themselves matter ; and the as- 
tronomer scans the heavens, with nothing else. Nor 
does saying and believing all this amount to materi- 
alism. Or if it does, materialism is truth ; and, re- 
gardless of names, that is all I want. The entire 
doctrine comes to this, and nothing more. Mind, 
being the superior agent, uses matter, to effect pur- 



PHYSICAL EDUCATION. 69 

poses, it could not attain without it ; as the chieftain 
gains a victory, with his soldiers, which he could not 
achieve alone. He is as really the governing spirit 
of his army, as the mind is of the human body. It 
will be understood and remembered, that I have 
been speaking of mind, in our present state of being. 
The discussion of its powers and prerogatives, in a 
future state, is the province of others. 

The inference to be deduced from the premises 
just stated, is, that physical education, which consists 
in the cultivation and improvement of our material 
organs, is a work infinitely more important than it is 
generally supposed to be. In fact, it alone, accord- 
ing as it is well or ill conducted, can raise human 
nature to the highest pitch of perfection, of which it 
is susceptible, or sink it to the lowest point of degra- 
dation. No language, therefore, can too strongly 
recommend, nor any measures too strictly enforce 
the duty of practising it. 

The physical education of the brain shall now be 
the subject of a few remarks. I say ' physical,' for 
it is as susceptible of that form of education, as any 
other organ. So true is this, that it is the only form 
it can receive. And were that brought to perfection, 
nothing more could be done, nor would aught more 
be requisite, for the improvement of mind. For, as 
already mentioned and explained, cerebral and men- 
tal education are the same. Here, again, I must 
speak as a phrenologist; for, in no other capacity, 
can I treat rationally of the subject L am about to 
consider. 



70 PHYSICAL EDUCATION. 

Like all other parts of the system, the brain, by 
suitable and well-regulated exercise, is enlarged, in- 
vigorated, rendered more dexterous in action, and 
therefore improved, in every respect, as the organ 
of the mind. This is as certain, as it is that the 
muscles themselves are improved by training. And) 
as is the case with other organs, it also may be ex* 
hausted and injured by too much, and enfeebled by 
too little action. For it should never be forgotten 
or neglected, as a practical truth, that, as action 
strengthens and improves living matter, inaction de- 
teriorates and weakens it. That is one of the lead- 
ing principles, by which physical education is to be 
directed. Indeed, it constitutes its foundation. 

The brain is not a simple, but a compound organ. 
I should rather say, that it is an aggregate of many 
smaller organs, distinct from each other, yet closely 
linked in their condition, by sympathy. The sound- 
ness of one of them aids in giving soundness to the 
others ; and the converse. These organs, being the 
instruments of separate mental faculties, are destined 
to the performance of separate functions, no one of 
them being able to perform any other function than 
its own ; as the eye sees, but cannot hear, and the 
ear hears, but can neither taste nor smell. As these 
organs, which unite in making up the cerebral mass, 
execute different sorts of work, so can they work at 
different times, some of them being active, while 
others are at rest. In this again, they resemble the 
external senses ; for the ear may be impressed with 
sound, while the eyes are closed ; the eye may see, 



PHYSICAL EDUCATION. 71 

while the ears are closed ; and the sense of smell 
may be active, while that of touch is dormant. The 
cerebral, organs moreover, like the external senses, 
are excited to action, by different objects, and kinds 
of impression. Thus, the eye is acted on, only by 
light, the ear by sound, and the smell, taste, and 
touch, by odorous, sapid, and tangible matter. In 
like manner, one cerebral organ is acted on and ex- 
ercised by language ; another, by form or figure; a 
third by size ; a fourth by number ; a fifth by place ; 
a sixth by tune ; a seventh and an eighth, by objects 
and events ; a ninth by color ; and others again, by 
the agents appropriate to them. Each one, how- 
ever, can be acted on and exercised only by things in 
its own line — by such, I mean, as specially corres- 
pond to it. The same organ, for example, which 
takes cognizance of size, and is exercised by it, can- 
not be excited by form, nor can that which is acted 
on by number, be influenced by tune, time, or place. 
And thus of all the others. 

The organs I have here named, are intellectual 
ones. There are organs again, of animal propensity, 
such as love,* resentment, covetousness, cunning, 
and others of moral sentiment, as benevolence, ven- 
eration, justice, and firmness. These may likewise 

* The reader will understand that the cerebral organs here 
referred to, are named in common language, best suited to 
those, to whom the Discourse was addressed. Technically, 
they are Amativeness, Combativeness, Acquisitiveness, Secre- 
tiveness, Benevolence, Veneration, Conscientiousness, and 
Firmness. 



72 PHYSICAL EDUCATION. 

be excited to action, strengthened, and improved, 
«ach by its own peculiar agent and form of impres- 
sion ; and they may all be enfeebled, by a state of 
inaction. For I again repeat, that it is suitable ac- 
tion alone, which amends living matter, including 
that of every description, while a want of action de- 
teriorates it, to the same extent. 

This, though a very defective analysis of the 
brain, is sufficient, I trust, to render intelligible any 
remarks I have yet to offer ; whereas, without it, 
there is reason to believe that I should not have been 
understood — an apprehension to that effect, is my 
reason for troubling you with this detail. 

The perfect physical education of the brain con- 
sists in the competent exercise of every portion of 
it ; so that each of its organs may possess due 
strength and activity, and be itself healthy ; and 
that there may exist between them the equilibrium 
necessary to the health and regulated action of the 
whole. If one or more organs be exercised too 
much, they may become exhausted and debilitated, 
excited to inflammation, or a condition bordering on 
it, and not less truly morbid ; while others, being 
exercised too little, or not at all, will be enfeebled 
by inaction. And thus must the health, not only 
of the brain, but of the whole system suffer. Fori 
have already observed, and need scarcely repeat, 
that the brain being one of the ruling viscera of the 
system, any derangement of it, must injure the con- 
dition of all the others. I shall only add, that 
cerebral organs are prone to become exhausted, or 



PHYSICAL EDUCATION. 73 

inflamed, according to their character. Are they 
small, phlegmatic, and feeble? severe exercise pros- 
trates them. Are they large, high toned, and 
vigorous? intense exercise inflames them, or produ- 
ces in them such irritability and inordinate action, as 
derange the balance of the brain, excite mental 
irregularities, and lay the foundation of cerebral dis- 
ease. 

This view of the subject shows the propriety and 
advantage of pupils pursuing several studies, or 
modes of mental exercise, at the same time, instead 
of being confined exclusively to one. It suggests, 
moreover the reason of it. By changing from one 
study to another successively, in the same day, those 
who are cultivating science and letters, not only 
learn much more than they could, under confine- 
ment to a single study, but do so with less exhaus- 
tion and danger to health. Why ? Because, by 
closely studying one branch of knowledge only, in 
other words, by laboring all day with one cerebral 
organ, it becomes exhausted and dull, as every in- 
dustrious student must have felt. When thus worn 
out, therefore, by toil, not only is it unfit to exercise 
further, with due effect, and master its task ; but its 
health is endangered, if not, for the time, actually 
injured. It is in a fatigued condition, which borders 
on a diseased one, and often excites it. When, on 
the contrary, the pupil, feeling himself becoming unfit 
for one study, passes to another, he engages in the lat- 
ter with a fresh and active organ, and makes rapid 
progress in it, until, beginning to be again fatigued and 
7 



74 PHYSICAL EDUCATION. 

dull, he changes to a third, or returns to that pre- 
viously relinquished, the organ corresponding to it 
being reinvigorated by rest. To illustrate my views, 
by examples familiar to every individual, who has 
received an education. 

If the pupil begin the study of language, say of 
Greek or Latin, in the morning, and continue it, 
during the whole day, he will be so toil-worn and 
dull, by night, as to be scarcely able to distinguish a 
noun from a verb. But if. instead of this injudicious 
and unprofitable course, he pursue the study of lan- 
guage two or three hours, then pass to mathematics, 
and next to geography or history, continuing each 
form of exercise, a reasonable time — by thus chang- 
ing the working organs, and allowing them alternately 
to refresh themselves by rest, he may study with 
equal intenseness, and an equal number of hours in 
the day, and, by night, feeling little or no fatigue, 
have acquired much more knowledge, at a less risk 
of health, than he could have done by the protracted 
toil of a single organ. Independently of the attain- 
ment made in history and geography, he will have a 
clearer and better knowledge even of his task in lan- 
guage, than he would have acquired, had he brooded 
over it during the whole day. Shifting the toil, in 
this manner, from one organ to another, is like 
bringing fresh soldiers into battle, to relieve their 
exhausted comrades ; or hands not yet fatigued, to 
the labors of the harvest field. By such changes, 
judiciously made, success is achieved ; while any 
other mode of proceeding would result in failure. 



PHYSICAL EDUCATION. 75 

Connected with this topic are two points, on 
which I am anxious to fix your attention, because I 
consider them peculiarly important. Much of their 
importance, moreover, arises from their being exclu- 
sively practical ; and from the further fact, that seri- 
ous and eveo fatal errors, in relation to them, are 
often committed. 

That I may be the more easily and perfectly un- 
derstood, I shall repeat what has been already stated, 
that very weak and dull organs, and very powerful 
and active ones, are differently affected, by exces- 
sive exercise. The former are prostrated and ren- 
dered uarlt for action, as a feeble and phlegmatic 
man is, by danger and oppression ; while, like a 
brave and powerful man, of a fiery temperament, 
the latter are roused to high excitement, and per- 
haps inflammation. Occurrences in illustration and 
proof of this, are not unfrequent in seats of learning. 

Parents or guardians resolve, {hat a youth, whose 
organs of language, size, and number, are small and 
feeble, shall notwithstanding, be made a linguist, and 
a mathematician. To effect this, the pupil is com- 
pelled, or in some way induced, to labor to excess, 
with his feeble organs, which are easily worn out, 
until the exhaustion and injury they have sustained 
prove prejudicial and perhaps ruinous to his other 
organs, which are of a better cast, as well as to his 
general health. Fatuity and insanity have been thus 
brought on. Again., — Another pupil has the same 
organs in fine developement, and highly excitable, 
apjive, and vigorous. His talents for language and 



76 PHYSICAL EDUCATION. 

mathematics, are discovered to be of the first order, 
and both he and his friends are ambitious that he 
should excel in the knowledge of them. Hence he 
is encouraged and incited to pursue the study of 
them, with such ardor and perseverance, as to pro- 
duce in the organs exercised, a state of intense and 
morbid irritation, and perhaps inflammation. By 
this imprudent excitement, madness and phrenitis, 
with other grievous maladies of the brain, have been 
repeatedly induced. Of the indiscreet and exces- 
sive exercise of other strong and feeble organs, 
whether animal, moral, or intellectual, the same is 
true. 

Is any one inclined to ask me, how he is to know 
when a youth possesses weak, and- when strong or- 
gans, for particular studies ? The answer is easy. 
The practical phrenologist makes the discovery by 
virtue of his art, and is rarely mistaken. Dr. Spurz- 
heim did this in Boston, in scores of instances, to the 
surprise and delight of many of the most enlightened 
inhabitants of the place. And in Edinburgh, Lon- 
don, Dublin, and Paris, and other parts of Great 
Britain and France, the practice has become so 
common, that it surprises no longer. There being, 
however, unfortunately but few practical phrenolo- 
gists in our country, those who are not so, may, 
from the following consider;: dons, derive some por- 
tion of the knowledge desired. Every one takes 
pleasure in the exercise of his well-developed and 
vigorous organs, and exerts them with good effect ; 
and the reverse. The exercise of his feeble ones. 



PHYSICAL EDUCATION. 77 

is a matter of indifference, if not dissatisfaction to 
him ; and be makes but little progress in any study 
in which they are chiefly concerned. Has a pupil, 
for example, a predominant taste for language, mu- 
sic, painting, and mechanical handicraft, or either of 
them? and does he make attainments in them, with 
ease and rapidity ? his organs and faculties for them 
are good. Is the reverse of this the case ? his organs 
for them are feeble. The practical precept deduci- 
ble from this statement is plain. Never urge a pupil 
to an excessive exertion of feeble cerebral organs, it 
being both useless and dangerous — useless, because 
he can, in no way, become respectable himself, or 
render high services to others, by them ; and dan- 
gerous, because it may impair his intellect, and de- 
stroy his health. For the same reason, do not 
encourage or permit a youth to persevere to excess 
in the exercise of highly sensitive and vigorous 
organs. The practice is like exposing an irritable 
or an inflamed eye to a glare of light, or assailing a 
phrenitic brain with piercing sounds. By a strict 
observance of these precepts, in seats of education, 
much time might be saved, which is now wasted, 
much evil prevented, and much good done. The 
necessity of their enforcement is strengthened by 
the fact, that children and youth of precocious and 
large developments, and unusually active and vigor- 
ous talents, possess, in general, delicate, and some- 
times feeble constitutions. Their systems are there- 
fore the more easily deranged, and should be guarded 

with the greater care. 

7* 



78 PHYSICAL ■■ EDUCATION. 

From the preceding facts, another important pre- 
cept may be drawn. Of a boy, whose whole brain 
is unusually small, never attempt to make a scholar, 
a professional character, or a man of science. The 
effort will not only eventuate in failure, but may 
prove ruinous to health. In a particular manner, it 
may induce fatuity, should the feeble-brained indi- 
vidual become severely studious. As well might 
you attempt to convert a dwarf into a grenadier, as 
a person with a very small head, into a man of a 
powerful and expanded intellect. Nor would it be 
less vain to endeavor to imbue with learning or sci- 
ence, a boy, whose brain is unusually large, in the 
animal compartment, and small in the intellectual 
and moral ones. Such an individual is formed, by 
nature, for a low sphere of mind, and no effort in 
education, can elevate him. Nor, could any train- 
ing render him studious, would he be less liable to 
some kind of mental alienation, than the youth, 
whose entire brain is small. Individuals thus organ- 
ized, may become great animals, and may even per- 
form striking and impressive actions ; but they can 
never attain rank, as men of intellect. In war, they 
may be brave and useful soldiers, and inferior offi- 
cers, but must be totally incompetent to high com- 
mand, 

Does any one doubt, whether the moral organs and 
faculties can be exercised, and moral feelings in- 
dulged in to excess ? and whether, in physical edu- 
cation, they ought to be, in any cases, restrained ? 
Is it, on the contrary, the belief, that the more high- 



PHYSICAL EDUCATION. 79 

toned every thing belonging to our moral nature is, 
its perfection is the greater ? Let all doubt and delu- 
sion, on these points, be removed, by the recollec- 
tion, that the organ of benevolence becomes, by in- 
ordinate excitement, so far deranged, in many per- 
sons, as to induce them to squander their estates, to 
the ruin of themselves and their families, in wild and 
unprofitable charities, and other acts of morbid gen- 
erosity ; while, by the ultra-excitement of veneration, 
hope, and wonder, others become religiously insane. 
Castle-building, running into mental derangement, as 
it often does, is likewise the product of inordinate 
action in moral organs. Go to a mad-house, and you 
will find fiery and vociferous religious insanity one 
of the common affections of its inmates. Every 
leaning of this sort, inordinately strong, should be 
moderated in children, by some form of counter-ex- 
citement. I mean, by giving, as far as possible, the 
feelings and thoughts a different direction. Yet the 
practice is too often the reverse of this. The youth- 
ful are encouraged in their enthusiastic devotions, un- 
til madness strikes them. Hence, on every occur- 
rence of a new sect or denomination in religion, as 
well as in most cases of what are called revivals, 
religious enthusiasm effervesces, in many instances, 
into wild insanity. That there is much madness 
among the new sects of Mormonites, and Immortal- 
ists, no one can doubt. The cause is, ultra-excite- 
ment in some portion of the moral compartment of 
the brain. Even the sentiment of conscientiousness 



80 PHYSICAL EDUCATION. 

may run to excess, and become productive of unrea- 
sonable scrupulousness and demur. 

The great end of the physical education of the 
brain, as already intimated, is to strengthen the whole 
of it, and maintain a due balance between its sev- 
eral parts. What is commonly called eccentricity, 
brown study, or absence of mind, is but another name 
for a want of such balance, and is a true and dan- 
gerous bent towards madness. Augment it to a suf- 
ficient extent ; in other words, excite sufficiently the 
irregular and extravagant organ, and real madness 
is the result. Hence, most persons, who become 
insane, especially those who fall into hereditary in- 
sanity, exhibit in their characters, even from child- 
hood, some uncommon and ominous traits — some- 
thing that is called eccentric or queer. In proof of 
this, the histories of the tenants of Lunatic Hospitals 
furnish abundant testimony. They show, that a large 
majority of those unfortunate individuals had been 
more or less eccentric. The evil consists in a state 
of supra-excitement and action, in some of the cere- 
bral organs. And physical education alone can 
remedy it. Take the following anecdote, as an il- 
lustration of my meaning. A gentleman of Philadel- 
phia, highly distinguished for his talents and standing, 
was subject to fits of extraordinary absence of mind, 
— in other words, to such entire absorption in the 
working of one or two of his cerebral organs, as to 
be insensible to that of all the others. He once in- 
vited a large number of his friends to dinner. On 
the appointed day, the guests assembled, in his draw- 



PHYSICAL EDUCATION. 81 

ing-room, where he met ihem with his usual wel- 
come and courtesy, and conversed with them, with 
his accustomed sprightlines and good sense. He be- 
came, at length, silent and abstracted, mused for a 
minute or two, and then, bowing to the company, 
begged them to excuse him, as he had an urgent 
piece of business to transact immediately. One of 
the gentlemen, well acquainted with the irregularity 
of his mind, addressing him familiarly, by his chris- 
tian name, asked him ' Did you not invite us to dine 
with you to-day ? ' — ' Did I ? ' said he — ' perhaps so — 
I'll see.' He stepped into his dining-room, where a 
table was sumptuously spread for him and his friends. 
Returning to the company, he joined them, first in 
merriment at his absent fit, and then in the pleasures 
of the repast. The sequel is melancholy. He be- 
came deranged in his mind, and died in that condi- 
tion, in the Pennsylvania Hospital. 

As already suggested, the cure of this evil is to 
be performed, by giving rest to the over active cere- 
bral organs, and transferring the excitement to some 
of the others, that are less irritable. Phrenology 
teaches the mode of conducting this process, on 
which a want of time forbids me to dilate. Permit 
me, however, to observe, that its power to weaken, 
and, by its continued operation, through successive 
generations, ultimately eradicate a hereditary predis- 
position to madness, gives physical education much 
of its value. In fact, that form of education, (I mean 
physical) hitherto so much neglected, and still so im- 
perfectly understood and practised, may be pronoun- 



82 PHYSICAL EDUCATION. 

ced the arbiter of the human mind, no less than of 
the human body. Its influence in strengthening or 
weakening, improving or deteriorating, all kinds of 
mental faculties and operations, is far greater than 
is commonly imagined. Through its instrumentality 
alone can man attain, in mind as well as body, the 
highest perfection of which he is susceptible. It is 
destined, therefore, to be the chief agent, in the pro- 
duction of the millennium, at whatever period that 
improved condition of our race may occur. This is 
as certain as it is, that a well-directed physical edu- 
cation is the principal means to improve, to the high- 
est pitch, the qualities of our domestic animals. 
And that truth will not be controverted. 

Let it never be forgotten, then, that the physical 
education of the human race ought not to be confin- 
ed alone to the humble object of preventing disease. 
Its aim should be loftier and more in accordance 
with the destiny and character of its subject — to raise 
man to the summit of his nature. A«d such will be 
its scope, in future and more enlightened times. 

In saying, that to promote and secure the health 
of the human system the brain should be educated 
and amended, I mean, as already intimated, the 
whole brain ; its animal and moral, as well as its in- 
tellectual compartments. It is only by a general 
and judicious training, that the proper equilibrium 
between the cerebral organs can be established and 
maintained. And that equilibrium is as necessary to 
the sound condition of the whole body, as to that of 
the brain itself. It produces an equipoise of the 



PHYSICAL EDUCATION. 83 

entire man, and holds in check the irregularities and 
excesses of both feeling and action, which prey on 
life, and tend to shorten it. Hence long-lived indi- 
viduals ha^e usually possessed a marked calmness 
and equability of character. Why ? Because their 
brains have been well balanced. If their feelings 
were strong, so were their powers to control them. 
Men of a burning temper and boisterous disposition, 
w 7 ho are perpetually running into extremes, and who 
pass much of their time between sinning and repent- 
ing, rarely attain to a very advanced age. The rea- 
son is obvious. Their health and strength are con- 
sumed in their own fires ; and those fires come from 
the brain ; I mean its animal compartment. That 
portion is the seat of what is usually termed pas- 
sion, which, when fierce and unrestrained, resembles 
intemperance in the use of strong drink. It inflames 
or otherwise deranges the brain, hastens the approach 
of old age, and curtails life, on the same principles. 
In delicate and irritable systems, it often excites con- 
vulsions, and sometimes palsy, apoplexy, and mad- 
ness. 

The following facts testify to the truth of the prin- 
ciples just laid down. The life of women is more se- 
cure than that of men. In other words, fewer of 
them die in a given period. In each census of the 
British empire, the number of women is found to be 
greater than that of men. Yet there are more males 
than females born in the empire, in the proportion 
of 105 to 100. Though war, casualty, migration 
and death in foreign and sickly countries, account for 



84 PHYSICAL EDUCATION. 

this in part, they are insufficient for the solution of 
the entire problem. The greater strength, more fre- 
quent and unrestrained bursts, and more constant 
burning of the passions, of men, contribute to the 
event. 

Again. The less impassionate the pursuits of men 
of genius are, the greater is the average longevity of 
each class of them. Mathematicians and natural 
philosophers have but little in their studies to excite 
feeling or stir up passion. The tenor of their lives 
is generally tranquil. Hence the aggregate age of 
twenty of them, taken promiscuously, has been 
found to amount to 1504 years, giving to each the 
average of 75. 

Poets, on the contrary, are proverbially an £ irri- 
table genus? — men of strong and easily excited 
feelings, and a burning imagination. Their produc- 
tions, moreover, being works of passion, their minds 
must be in tumult, during their composition. From 
these causes, the aggregate age of twenty distinguish- 
ed poets has been ascertained to be 1144 years, giv- 
ing to each an average of 57 — a very striking bal- 
ance in favor of a mind free from passion! 

In our efforts to produce an equipoise in the brain, 
one fact should be held in remembrance, and ob- 
served, as a leading ground of action. By nature, 
the animal organs are larger and more powerful than 
the moral or intellectual. This is the case in every 
one, but in some individuals much more strikingly so 
than in others. It is true of man, therefore, that he 
possesses, naturally, more of animality, than of real 



PHYSICAL EDUCATION. 85 

humanity. Hence the comparative ferocity and sav- 
ageism of the uneducated. Why ? Because their an- 
mal organs, never having been restrained and tamed, 
predominate greatly over their moral and intellectu- 
al, more especially over their reflective ones. This 
constitutes the chief difference between the culti- 
vated and the uncultivated portions of our race. The 
latter are more of animals ; the- former more of men. 

This view of the subject indicates clearly the 
leading purpose of the physical education of the brain. 
It is to strengthen the moral and intellectual organs, 
by exciting them to action, each in a manner corres- 
ponding to its nature, and to weaken comparatively 
the animal organs, by restraining their action. Thus 
will the former attain, by degrees, such an ascenden- 
cy over the latter, as to be able to control them, and 
give calmness and equability to the character of the 
individual — to convert the rude animal into the cul- 
tivated. man. Nor is the condition of the brain thus 
produced, less friendly to the welfare of the body, 
than to the sound operations of the min.d. 

The influence of strong and well-cultivated morals 
and intellectual organs on the general health of the 
system is soothing and salutary, and feeds and 
strengthens it, instead of ruffling and wearing it 
out. Compared to the influence of the organs of 
passion, it is as mild and wholesome nourishment, 
contrasted with alcohol : or like the genial warmth 
of the spring and autumn, to the burning heats of 
summer. Life, and health, and comfort may last 
long under the former, while all is parched and with- 
8 



OO PHYSICAL EDUCATION. 

ered by the latter. Finally : a well-cultivated and 
well-balanced brain, does much to produce and 
maintain, a sound mind in a sound body. Let the 
attainment of it therefore be a leading aim, in phys- 
ical education. 

Of innumerable instances that might be cited, in 
proof of the principle here contended for, I shall refer 
to but one ; and that is memorable in the history 
of our country. The Declaration of Independence 
was signed by fifty-six Delegates, all of them men 
of well-cultivated and well-balanced minds. In oth- 
er words, their moral and intellectual had gained the 
requisite ascendency over their animal organs. Of 
these, two died of casualties, in the prime of man- 
hood. The aggregate of the years of the other fifty- 
four was 3,609, giving to each an average of 66 years 
and 9 months ; an illustrious example of the influ- 
ence of well-cultivated and regulated brains, in con- 
ferring longevity on those who possess them. Sev- 
eral of these great and good men lived beyond their 
eightieth year, and some of them passed the age of 
ninety. It is not to be doubted that the avoidance 
of all forms of excess, and the general correctness of 
the habits produced, by this condition of the brain, 
contributes materially to the prolongation of life. 
The venerable Madison, of a feeble frame, posses- 
es one of the best-cultivated and balanced minds that 
ever existed ; and he is now in his eighty-fifth year. 

The importance of the judicious education and 
general management of the brain, and the serious 
evils arising from neglect and errors in them, lead 



PHYSICAL EDUCATION. 87 

me, though somewhat out of my immediate track, 
to make a few further remarks on the subject. My 
sense of duty, and therefore my ruling motive to 
this effect is the stronger, in consideration of the 
fact, that the thoughts I have to offer apply more 
forcibly to our own country than to any other. 

Dyspepsia and mental derangement are among the 
most grievous maladies that affect the human race ; 
and they are much more nearly allied to each other 
than'they are generally supposed to be. So true is 
this, that the one is not unfrequently converted into 
the other, and often alternates with it. The lunatic 
is usually a dyspeptic, during his lucid intervals ; and 
complaints, which begin in some form of gastric de- 
rangement, turn, in many instances, to madness. 
Nor is this all. In families, where mental derange- 
ment is hereditary, the members, who escape that 
complaint, are more than usually obnoxious to dys- 
pepsia. It may be added, that dyspeptics and lu- 
natics are relieved by the same modes of treatment, 
and that their maladies are induced, for the most 
part, by the same causes. 

Somewhat in confirmation of these views, it may 
be further stated, that dyspepsia and madness pre- 
vail more extensively in the United States, in pro- 
portion to the number of our inhabitants, than among 
the people of any other nation. Of the amount of 
our dyspeptics no estimate can be formed ; but it is 
immense. Whether we inquire in cities, towns, vil- 
lages, or country places, among the rich, the poor, 
or those in moderate circumstances, we find dyspep- 



88 PHYSICAL EDUCATION. 

sia more or less prevalent throughout the land. In 
other countries, this is not the case — -not, I mean, 
to any thing near the same extent. True, in Great 
Britain, Germany, and France, the complaint assails 
the higher classes of society ; but there it stops, — 
the common and lower classes scarcely knowing it, r 
except by name. In Italy, Spain, and Portugal, it 
is still less common among all ranks of the people. 
The apparent cause of these things will be referred 
to presently. 

Insanity prevails in our country to an alarming ex- 
tent, and, in common, with dyspepsia, is on the in- 
crease. The entire number of the insane, in the 
United States, is computed at fifty thousand — a 
most startling aggregate, and, I trust, beyond the 
real one — yet the real one, were it ascertained, would 
be very great ; sufficient to excite strict inquiries into 
the cause, accompanied by strenuous efforts for its re- 
moval. According to a late and very intelligent wri- 
ter, * whose information and accuracy deserve our 
confidence, there are a thousand lunatics in the 
State of Connecticut.- This is in the ratio of one 
to every two hundred and sixty-two of the inhab- 
itants of the State. In England, the number of in- 
sane persons does not exceed twelve or thirteen thou- 
sand. In the agricultural districts, there, the average 
ratio is about one in eight hundred and twenty of the 
whole population, being to that of Connecticut less 
than one to three. Yet in England the disease pre- 

* Dr. Brigham. 



PHYSICAL EDUCATION. 89 

vails to a greater extent, than in any other nation of 
Europe. In Scotland, the general proportion, includ- 
ing towns and cities, as well as country places, is 
one in Jive hundred and seventy-four. There is ev- 
ery where more madness according to the amount of 
population, in cities, than in the country. In Spain 
and Russia, the large cities excepted, there is very 
little; in Turkey, Persia, and China, still less. Of 
Hindostan 1 believe the same is true. And in sav- 
age nations, especially where no ardent spirits are 
used, the complaint is scarcely known. Such is the 
report of all travellers among the Indians of North 
and South America. To this may be subjoined that 
the insanity of a people is increased, by the occur- 
rence among them of any deep and extensive men- 
tal commotion, whether from theological or political 
causes. Such, as history informs us, was the effect 
of the Reformation by Luther, of the Revolution by 
Cromwell, of the American Revolution, and more 
especially of the first Revolution in France. During 
the convulsions of the latter event, the frequency of 
insanity in Paris was frightful. 

From these facts it appears, that in proportion to 
the freedom of action of the humam mind in any 
country, more especially in proportion as it is tossed 
and perplexed by strong passions and emotions, is 
the amount of madness, by which that country is vis- 
ited. This result we should expect, from calcula- 
tion on well-known principles ; and observation tes- 
tifies to its truth. In common times, there is more 
mental agitation in Great Britain, than in France ; 
8* 



90 PHYSICAL EDUCATION. 

more in France, than in Spain or Russia ; and much 
more in either of them, than in Turkey, Persia, or 
China. And, in savage tribes, except during the 
hours of hunting and battle, there is no mental agita- 
tion at all — none certainly of a distracting charac- 
ter. The causes of these several facts are plain. It 
clearly appears that, in civilized nations, the degree 
of distracting mental emotion, which the people gen- 
erally experience, is in proportion to the amount of 
the freedom they enjoy. And that again depends 
on the more or less popular characters of their gov- 
ernments. The people of England and Scotland 
enjoy more freedom than the people of France ; and 
the latter more/than those of Spain or Russia. In 
Turkey, Persia, and China, political freedom is un- 
known. The despotism of government compresses 
the minds of the subjects into a dead and hopeless 
calm. Unable to render their condition any better, 
the degraded population cease, in appearance, to wish 
it so, or even to disquiet themselves by a thought on 
the subject. 

Very different is ^the condition of things in the 
United States. Our freedom, both political and re- 
ligious is ample ; and we push and enjoy it to its ut- 
most limits. Our institutions, moreover, of every de- 
scription, are as popular as comports with social order 
and sound government. State and church prefer- 
ment and office are open to every one, and the ardor, 
keenness and constancy of competition and struggle 
for them, have no example in the practices of the 
present, or the history of the past. The fervor and 



PHYSICAL EDUCATION. 91 

commotion of electioneering intrigue has no respite. 
Under some form, the country is agitated, I might al- 
most say convulsed by it, from the beginning to the 
end of the year — and of every year. Thus are the 
angry and burning passions kept forever awake among 
the people, and often urged to the most intense ac- 
tion. My present allusion is chiefly to the intermin- 
able and embittered war of party politics. 

Of party religion nearly the sam6 is true. Secta- 
rian embroilment, battle, and intrigue are constant, 
furious and vengeful. Sometimes the strife is about 
a doctrinal tenet, at other times about a formal rite 
or ceremony, and again for the achievement of power 
and influence, — one sect struggling for the mastery 
over the rest- — at least to outstrip them in schemes 
of ambition. Nor must I forget the fervid and un- 
ceasing labors of the pastor and preacher for the 
conversion and edification of his flock, and the wild 
and convulsive emotion he often produces in their 
minds. In no other nation are these several forms 
of excitement half so high and agitating as in the 
United States. A similar condition of things exists 
in the congregation of the celebrated Irvine, of Lon- 
don, many of whose hearers are occasionally de- 
ranged. 

Another source of deep disquietude to the inhabit- 
ants of our country, is the desire and pursuit of 
wealth. A more ardently money-loving and keenly 
money-seeking people than the Americans does not 
exist. I doubt much, whether, in these respects, 
any equals them. The reason of this is plain. The 



92 PHYSICAL EDUCATION. 

nature of our government and of all our institutions 
encourages and urges every one to. aim at standing 
and power ; and the possession of wealth aids greatly 
in the attainment of them. Indeed, hereditary titles 
and standing being unknown to us, the only actual 
elements of rank and power in the United States 
are wealth and place. Without these, talents how- 
ever splendid, and knowledge however varied and 
extensive, give to their possessor but little influence. 
Nor is this all. Owing to our youthful and unsettled 
character, as a people, the modes of acquiring wealth 
are not so well established in the United States, as 
in the countries of Europe. Business does not run 
in so regular a channel. There is more of random 
traffic and speculation in it. And these forms of 
transacting it, being often suddenly productive of 
great profit, and at other times of ruinous losses, and 
keeping the mind constantly on the stretch of the 
calculation of chances, are much more exciting and 
harassing, than they would be, were they more uni- 
form and certain. Men engaged in regular and well- 
settled business pursue it mechanically, are calm 
during the day, and sleep soundly at night. But 
dealers and speculators, besides being constantly dis- 
quieted while awake, are tossed between sudden 
wealth and ruin in their dreams. They are equally 
distracted by the uncertainty and the unexpected 
occurrence of events. 

Such are the three leading sources of mental 
commotion in our country — party politics, party re- 
ligion, and the love of wealth. Nor is it to be doubt- 



PHYSICAL EDUCATION. 93 

ed, that they produce in the minds of the people, a 
greater amount of harassing and giddy excitement, 
than exists, perhaps, in all other nations united. But 
mental excitement is only another name for cere- 
bral exeitement/ Nor must it be forgotten, that the 
early mismanagement and debilitating practice of 
overworking the brains of children, in infant and 
other early schools, disqualify them to maintain their 
soundness, in after life, under a degree of irrita- 
tion, which they might have otherwise sustained, 
without much injury. If the lungs be injured and 
weakened, in infancy or childhood, no one doubts 
that the individual thus affected, will be more than 
usually liable to pulmonary complaints. Why? 
Because the lungs are not only more susceptible of 
malign impressions, but less able to resist them, and 
escape the mischief they are calculated to produce. 
Of the brain, the same is true. If it be weakened 
in childhood, it will be afterwards inordinately liable 
to morbid affections, and too feeble to contend with 
them. 

That these- causes contribute to the production of 
the inordinate sum of insanity, which prevails in the 
United States, is too plain to be held in doubt. For 
madness is the result of cerebral excitement, rendered 
deleterious by the excess in quantity, or the malign 
qualities of the irritants that produce it. Nor can 
any cerebral irritant be more noxious, either in kind 
or degree, than the cankered and fierce religious and 
political passions, which are constantly goading the 
American brain. Under such circumstances, it 



94 PHYSICAL EDUCATION. 

would be wonderful, if attacks of insanity were not 
unusually frequent among us. 

But can the same Causes prove also instrumental, 
in the production of dyspepsia ? — No doubt of it. 
That complaint commences, perhaps, as often in the 
brain, as in the stomach. Possibly oftener. That 
this is true of the disease in Europe, will scarcely be 
denied, after a fair examination of the facts connected 
with it. It is there, almost exclusively, a complaint 
of the studious and the scheming, who, overtasking 
their brains, injure them by toil. Among the hus- 
bandmen of England, who steadily pursue their tran- 
quil mode of life, regardless of the fluctuations of stock, 
the bickerings of party, the fate of political measures, 
and the changes of place, dyspepsia is almost a stran- 
ger. Yet many of those men are great eaters, and 
far from being very choice as to the quality of their 
food. In the cities, the same is in a great measure 
true of merchants, manufacturers, and mechanics, 
who are engaged in a regular and well-established 
business, which is fully understood by them, where 
the risk is slight, and. the profits sure, and no disqui- 
eting anxiety attends it. Such individuals have a 
good digestion, and bear the marks of it. But, with 
literary men, officers of state, dealers in scrip, dar- 
ing adventurers, and anxious and ambitious project- 
ors of improvements — with these, and every other 
brain-worn class of persons, the case is different. 
Dyspepsia is their torment ; and they exhibit deep 
traces of it, in their lean frames, and haggard coun- 
tenances. Yet are they much more select in their 



PHYSICAL EDUCATION. 95 

diet, both as respects quantity, quality, and cooking, 
than the classes to whom dyspepsia is unknown. 
This fact is notorious, and has been so for centuries. 
Nor can it be attributed, I think, to any other 
cause, but excessive and deleterious cerebral irrita- 
tion, in the one case, and an exemption from it, in 
the other. And this cause seems sufficient to solve 
the problem. 

That it is not exclusively the labor and irritation 
of the stomach that produces dyspepsia, appears from 
innumerable other facts, a few of which, I shall re- 
cite. Children not too much confined in school, or 
otherwise mistreated, though great and often pro- 
miscuous eaters, are rarely dyspeptic. The reason 
is plain. Their brains are neither toil-worn nor 
care-worn ; and they enjoy the requisite amount of 
sleep. Their brains are not irritated and exhausted 
by burdensome tasks. The North American Indians 
eat, at times, enormously, and that after a long fast, 
which, on well-known principles, increases the dan- 
ger of overloading the stomach. It is said that, on 
these occasions, the meal of a single Indian, is equal 
to that of from four to six white men. The food, 
moreover, is badly cooked, and therefore indigestible. 
Yet the savage escapes dyspepsia. 

Of the Esquimaux Indians, the same is true, to a 
still greater extent. An individual of that tribe, as 
we are confidently assured by Captain Parry and 
Captain Lyon, eats with impunity from ten to twelve 
pounds of solid animal food, in the course of a day, 
and swallows along with it, in the form of drink, a 
gallon of oil. Captain Lyon further relates, that a 



96 PHYSICAL EDUCATION. 

young female Esquimaux ate a large amount of can- 
dles and their wicks, without sustaining either sick- 
ness or dyspepsia. These statements we are com- 
pelled to believe, on account of the high respect- 
ability of the authors. of them. 

Of the gluttony of the Siberians, stories are told, 
not perhaps altogether so worthy of credit. Were 
not that people, however, enormous eaters, such 
stories would not be invented. The accounts are 
but exaggerations of extraordinary gormandizing. 
It is asserted by travellers, that a Siberian often eats, 
in a day, forty 'pounds of solid food; and Admiral 
Saritchaff reports, that he saw one of that people, 
eat, immediately after breakfast, twenty- five pounds 
of boiled rice, and three pounds of butter. Yet, as 
already stated, neither Siberians nor Esquimaux, 
are annoyed by dyspepsia. And they, no doubt, owe 
their safety, in part, to their freedom from wasting 
cerebral irritation. 

For the same reason the inferior animals have no 
dyspepsia, though they often gorge themselves to 
great excess. When they thus violate moderation, 
nature teaches them what to do for safety. They 
instinctively lie down and sleep, giving entire free- 
dom and rest to their brains. A common black 
snake swallows a rabbit or a squirrel nearly as 
weighty as itself, and goes into a partial torpor, until 
its meal is digested. A boa-constrictor swallows a 
goat or an antelope, sleeps nearU T a week, and wakes 
without dyspepsia or uneasiness, prepared for another 
similar exploit. Two dogs of the same age, size, 



PHYSICAL EDUCATION. 97 

&nd strength, having eaten the same amount of the 
same food, one of them goes to sleep, and the other 
enters on the chase. In from three to four hours, 
the meal of the sleeper is digested, while that of the 
runner is unchanged in his stomach — and the latter 
dog is probably disordered, while the former retains 
iiis health. These facts show, that tranquillity of the 
brain is favorable at least, if not essential to the pro- 
cess of easy and sound digestion. 

The powerful influence of a disordered brain, over 
the digestive system, is manifested in the effects of a 
severe blow on the head. These are vomiting, gas- 
tric inflammation, hepatic derangement, amounting 
at times, to abscess, and again, to torpor of the liver, 
with other forms of abdominal disease. Sea-sick- 
ness, moreover, is a cerebral affection, thrown on 
the stomach. So is the sickness produced in many 
persons, by whirling the body, and riding in a car- 
riage, with the back toward the horses. The em- 
peror Napoleon died of a gastric affection, in St. 
Helena, where such complaints are scarcely known. 
He was, moreover, a very temperate eater. But he 
had deep sensibility and powerful passions. The 
most probable cause of his disease, therefore, was 
mortification at the loss of empire, resentment and 
chagrin at his exile and confinement, vexation at the 
treatment he received from the governor of the island, 
and inconsolable grief at being separated from his 
family. These causes, goading his brain almost to 
madness, threw their influence sympathetically on 
his stomach, and destroyed him. 
9 



98 PHYSICAL EDUCATION. 

Nor is the whole yet told. Grief is nothing but 
a painful and deleterious cerebral irritation. Females 
experience that passion in its greatest intensity ; and 
it is, to them, a very productive cause of dyspepsia. 
So is jealousy, a passion which they also feel, with 
peculiar acuteness and distress. And every painful 
passion and emotion, is but another name for exces- 
sive and hurtful irritation of the brain, which, if long 
continued, never fails to injure digestion. Even 
anger arrests the process of digestion. Nor are fe- 
males the only sufferers from such irritation. Males, 
also, are its victims. 

A man in perfect health, and with a fine appetite, 
seats himself at table ; but, before he has began his 
meal, a messenger communicates to him, some dis- 
tressing news. His appetite vanishes ; and the very 
sight and odor of the food becomes offensive to him. 
Or, has he just finished his repast, when the message- 
is delivered ? If he be not actually sickened by it, 
and forced to discharge the contents of his stomach, 
indigestion, sick headache, and perhaps feverishness, 
are the result. And-what student does not know, 
that effects, somewhat similar, are produced by 
severe intellectual toil, immediately after a plentiful 
meal ? That dyspepsia, moreover, is proverbially 
one of the morbi studiosorum, one of the complaints 
of the studious, is a truth familiar to every one. 
Nor is it less notorious, that men who think but 
little, and are exempt from care, seldom suffer from 
it. The cheerful and jolly do not often become 
dyspeptic — the grave and care-worn, very frequently. 



PHYSICAL EDUCATION. 



99 



This truth has been long, and familiarly known. 
Caesar manifested his acquaintance with it, when he 
spoke of the countenances of the gay and cheerful 
Antony, and the deeply thoughtful Brutus and Cas- 
sius : the former fresh, full, and ruddy, the latter 
pale, sallow, and care-worn. 

But my argument is not yet closed. The most 
successful mode of treating dyspepsia, favors the 
belief, that it often arises from cerebral irritation, and 
is always perhaps connected with it. Am I asked, 
in what this treatment consists ? I reply, in regulat- 
ing the passions, taking muscular exercise, in the 
open air, abandoning intellectual toil, and retreating, 
for a time, from business and care. Unless the 
complaint be so inveterate and deep-rooted as to 
have produced some serious organic lesion, this 
course of treatment, steadily pursued, will cure it, 
without either the use of much medicine, or confine- 
ment to a very strict diet ; and it can often be cured 
in no other way. To him, whose brain is constantly 
on the rack, dyspeptic medicine and diet are of little 
use. 

How often do we find the efficacy of this mode 
of treatment, verified. An individual deeply devoted 
to books and study, becomes dyspeptic. Without 
mitigating his intellectual labors, he tries various 
remedies for the restoration of his health. For 
months, and perhaps years, he eats by weight, of 
prescribed articles, and dresses and exercises by 
measurement and rule. During this trial of his pa- 
tience, tea and coffee are rejected ; new milk, boiled 



100 PHYSICAL EDUCATION. 

rice, and bread, stale, or made of unbolted flour, 
with fresh eggs, and well-prepared mutton chops, 
being his only food, and water his only drink ; and 
he walks every day, at stated hours, a given number 
of miles. Finding this treatment ineffectual, he re- 
sorts to daily horse-exercise, under an assurance 
from some very ' skilful doctor,' or perhaps a 
1 knowing nurse,' that that will cure him. But, in- 
stead of being removed, or even lightened, his com- 
plaint grows worse. During these experiments, he 
has continued to return regularly from his meals, 
and his horse and foot exercise, to his books and his 
pen, thus irritating and exhausting his brain, by un- 
interrupted labor. At length, impatient of trials, 
that have proved so unavailing, he renounces medi- 
cine and regimen, resolves to become master of him- 
self and his movements, and takes his case into his 
own hands. Under this determination, he shuts up 
his study, mounts his horse, and sets out on a jour- 
ney, to visit a friend, a couple of hundred miles dis- 
tant, riding during wet weather, as well as dry, and 
living on the common fare of travellers. Before he 
has proceeded a hundred miles, his health is much 
improved ; and, on reaching the dwelling of his 
friend, he finds himself well. 

This is no fancy-case, but one that has innumer- 
able examples in life. To what is the cure to be 
attributed ? The dyspeptic has previously conformed 
most strictly to dieteetic rules, and travelled, on foot 
and on horseback, some thousands of miles, in fine 
weather, and through a pure atmosphere, without 



PHYSICAL EDUCATION. 101 

any benefit to health ; yet he is now cured, by riding 
two hundred miles, a part of the way in bad 
weather, and living, in the mean time, on indifferent 
food. The cause of the salutary effect of his jour- 
ney, is easily rendered. Having relinquished his 
intellectual toils, his brain is at ease, and no longer 
injures his digestive organs, or any other part of his 
system. On the contrary, by acting salutarily on 
them, it benefits them, and enables them to perform 
their respective functions. Let him immediately 
return to his studies, with his usual intensity, and his 
complaint will revisit him. — Instead of a man of let- 
ters, suppose the dyspeptic to be a statesman, an 
artist, or a man of business; the result of the speci- 
fied measures will be the same. Cerebral quietude 
will contribute much to the restoration of his health. 
Again. It is well known, that individuals, who, 
under all sorts of treatment, have been tormented by 
dyspepsia, from the age of twenty-five or thirty, to 
forty or forty-five, very often recover their health, 
and from having been thin, become fleshy, about 
the latter period, after having abandoned medicine 
entirely, and relaxed not a little, in the strictness of 
their regimen. To use their own language, they 
seem to have 6 gotten well, without any cause.' A 
satisfactory cause, however, is not wanting. They 
are less harassed and corroded by care, passion, and 
mental labor — in simpler and more philosophical 
language — they experience less cerebral irritation, 
for one of the two following reasons, or both united. 
They have attained the object, for which they had 
9* 



102 PHYSICAL EDUCATION. 

previously toiled, and disquieted themselves; or, age 
and experience have somewhat blunted their sensi- 
bilities, and calmed their passions ; or both causes, 
have cooperated to the same end. For similar rea- 
sons, dyspepsia rarely commences in an individual, 
after his forty-fifth or fiftieth year. Time has dimin- 
ished the susceptibility of his brain. 

Such appear to be the leading causes of the 
alarming frequency and increase of madness and 
dyspepsia, in the United States. The same irrita- 
tion which, in some cases, produces the former com- 
plaint, in others gives rise to the latter, by not only 
disqualifying the brain for acting beneficially on the 
stomach and the other digestive organs, but by ren- 
dering its influence injurious to them. Nor can it 
be doubted, as already intimated, that Infant Schools, 
under their present administration, are calculated to 
increase the evil, by giving a morbid growth and 
susceptibility to the brain. So, as heretofore men- 
tioned, are intemperate eating, and other improprie- 
ties in diet and drink. The only effectual remedy, 
is a well-directed physical education. 

Were I asked, how severe cerebral irritation and 
labor injure the stomach and other digestive organs, 
my reply would be, In a two-fold way ; sympathet- 
ically and functionally. In the latter mode, the 
brain, being unfitted for its healthy action, and in 
some degree exhausted itself, withholds from the 
whole digestive system that measure of influence 
and aid, known to be essential to the performance 
of its functions. In what this influence consists, is 



PHYSICAL EDUCATION. 103 

not exactly known. Jt is probably, however the 
product of a subtle and peculiar form of matter, 
which the brain prepares from the blood, and trans- 
mits, by the nerves, to the other parts of the body. 
That a communication between the stomach and 
the brain is necessary to digestion, experiment 
proves. When that formed by the nerves is inter- 
rupted, the digestive action is suspended ; when re- 
stored, the process again goes on. Since, therefore, 
the entire want of the cerebral influence injures the 
stomach, any irregularities or bad qualities in it can 
scarcely fail to do the same. • 

Did time permit, it would be gratifying to me to 
revert to the consideration of the moral influence of 
the brain, and to speak of it more fully, and in a 
manner more worthy of its importance than I have 
heretofore done. That a sound, well-developed, 
and well-regulated condition of that organ is as truly 
the source of correct morals, as a healthy condition 
of the heart and the lungs is of the due circulation 
and arteriolization of the blood, is a truth admitted 
now by all who have thoroughly studied the subject, 
and which is destined, at no very distant period, to 
be without an opponent. On this ground alone can 
moral education and reform be rationally and suc- 
cessfully conducted, and brought to the perfection 
of which they are susceptible. The moral organs 
of the brain, and the reflecting ones, as their adju- 
tants, must be strengthened by regular and. well-di- 
rected exercise, and thus rendered more ready in 
action, as well as more vigorous. Immorality and 



104 PHYSICAL EDUCATION. 

crime are the product of the animal organs ; and the 
reason of their being committed is obvious. These 
organs preponderate, if not habitually, at least for the 
time, over the moral and reflecting organs. Instead 
of being subordinate, as they ought to be, they take 
the mastery, and, by running into excess, bring guilt 
on the individual ; precisely as the crew of a vessel 
sometimes mutiny, break from the control of their of- 
ficers, and perhaps murder them and plunder the 
ship, The source of every crime is the same, the 
preponderance of the animal portion of the brain ; 
and the radical extinguishment must be also the 
same, the reduction of the strength of that portion, 
and its being brought to a state of subordination to 
the higher organs. Every habitual offender has a 
brain in some way unsound. There is a want of 
balance and harmony between his cerebral organs, 
which amounts to derangement, and calls for skilful 
treatment to remove it. And, without such treat- 
ment, his moral malady will as necessarily continue, 
as must a dislocated joint remain in a deranged con- 
dition, if it be not reduced. To carry out the figure, 
except in far-gone cases, the moral disease can be 
remedied by judicious treatment, as certainly as 
the articular. The remedy, moreover, is simple. It 
consists in bringing the offending animal organs to a 
state of comparative inaction, which will diminish 
their strength, and giving constant exercise to the 
moral and reflecting organs, by which their power 
and promptitude in acting will be increased. Thus 
will the truly human portion of the brain attain an 



PHYSICAL EDUCATION. 105 

ascendency over the animal, and man will advance 
toward the perfection of his nature. 

Is any one inclined to request me to be more ex- 
plicit in pointing out the means of moral education 
and reform, and in specifying the mode in which the 
process is to be conducted ? If so, I could not an- 
swer him better than by directing his attention to 
several of the penitentiary establishments, and all 
the Houses of Correction for juvenile offenders in 
the United States. There, to a certain extent, the 
means are already in operation, and in some of the 
institutions, the prospects are very nattering. In 
many cases, vicious and criminal propensities have 
been extinguished, and habits of morality and virtue 
established. In other words, the inordinate action 
of the animal organs has been allayed, and that of 
the moral and reflecting invigorated. 

The means of effecting this are few and simple. 
By being withdrawn from the community, and, m 
many cases, by solitary confinement, the culprits are 
strictly guarded not only from the commission of 
crime, but from all temptation to it. Thus are their 
animal organs, which are prone to offend, reduced to 
a state of comparative inaction, which, in time, de- 
prives them of much of their strength, and weakens, 
in a corresponding degree, the appetite for vice. For 
the propensity to transgress is but the craving of a 
powerful and highly excited organ. But this alone 
could not be denominated moral reform. At most, 
it would be but negatively so. To weaken one class 
of organs is not exactly tantamount to the strength- 



106 PHYSICAL EDUCATION. 

ening of another, even though they be antagonists. 
Other measures therefore are added. The offenders 
are strictly practised in some form of useful industry, 
which not only occupies the mind, and withdraws it 
from thoughts of vice, but is itself a moral duty. 
Nor is this all. Moral and religious instruction is 
directly inculcated on them by reading, preaching, 
conversation, remonstrance, advice, example, and 
practice. This, by exciting and exercising their 
moral and reflecting organs, confers on them positive 
strength, and except in the worst class of cases, gives 
them ultimately an ascendency over the animal. 
Then is the permanent bias of the mind turned to- 
ward virtue, and the reformation of the offenders is 
complete. 

When established on correct principles, and skilful- 
ly administered, Penitentiaries and Houses of Cor- 
rection are moral hospitals, where criminal propensi- 
ties are treated as diseases, consisting in unsound 
conditions of the brain. And in such conditions 
they do consist, as certainly as hepatitis does in a 
morbid state of the liver, or dyspepsia, in a similar 
state with the stomach. And, by judicious treat- 
ment, they can be as certainly removed. Nor is it 
possible, on any. other principles, to purify and 
strengthen our moral nature, and raise it to the 
height and confer on it the dignity, of which it is 
susceptible. Yet all this amounts to nothing more 
than the application of physical education to the 
moral organs of the brain. In treating of it, therefore, 
I have not in any degree departed from my subject. 



PHYSICAL EDUCATION. 107 

I have only brought to bear on it matter of illustra- 
tion not usually employed, but not, on that account 
the less appropriate and useful. I shall only add, 
that the time and treatment necessary for the removal 
of a malady must be apportioned and accommodated 
to its strength, fixity and aggravating circumstances. 
And as there are cases of incurable derangement in 
other parts of the body, so are there in the brain, of 
that which creates a propensity to crime. In such 
instances, the interests of society can be duly pro- 
tected, only by the confinement of the culprits for 
life, or their capital punishment. 

In the training of the brain, the proper manage- 
ment of sleep is of considerable moment. Children 
require more sleep than adults, and some children 
more than others. Young infants should be allowed 
to sleep a greater portion of their time. As they 
advance in years, a less proportion will be not only 
sufficient, but more salutary to them. For children 
and youth pursuing their education, from seven to 
nine hours of sleep, out of twenty-four is enough. 
Many do not require more than six. Less than that 
might prove injurious, especially if the abstinence 
were long continued. Too little sleep weakens the 
brain, and consequently the entire system, by exhaus- 
tion; too much, by inaction. For sleep consists in 
the quietude of the brain. Of this, as of other things, 
a mean quantity is best. An excess of sleep has 
produced idiotism ; a deprivation of it, madness — 
and sometimes inflammation of the brain. 

It is not unimportant to observe, that a life of strict 



108 PHYSICAL EDUCATION. 

temperance curtails materially the time necessary to 
be spent in sleep. For this ihere are sundry rea- 
sons, two of them leading ones. The intemperate 
require a greater amount of actual sleep, on account 
of the deeper exhaustion of their systems. But their 
sleep, never healthy, is broken, dreamy, and compar- 
atively unrefreshing. It is the sleep of bad digestion, 
their stomachs being oppressed, by a superabundance 
of food. Hence they are compelled to consume a 
greater length of time, in acquiring the necessary 
degree of repose. The temperate and regular, on 
the contrary, are comparatively strangers to dreams. 
They rest profoundly, and enjoy a fuller measure of 
sound and refreshing sleep, in six hours, than the in- 
temperate do in nine. In this way, they save, in 
the course of a life-time, several years of active and 
useful existence, which, to those of contrary habits, 
are lost in sleep and drowsiness. 

As neither their bones nor muscles are yet con- 
firmed in strength, the manner in which children hold 
themselves in school, is not unimportant. They 
should sit as erect as their employments will admit, 
lest they contract ungraceful and pernicious habits of 
stooping or distortion ; and they ought not to be per- 
mitted, much less compelled, to sit long in one posi- 
tion, but be directed to change it, by standing, or in 
some other way. This will prevent numbness of 
their limbs, and other unpleasant effects from stillness 
and compression. Want of motion, produces in 
many, a coldness of the feet, which weakens their at- 
tention to study, and brings on headache and dys- 



PHYSICAL EDUCATION. 109 

pepsia. In a special manner, children should not be 
allowed to lean heavily, on the breast or stomach, 
against desks or tables. Gastric derangement and 
pulmonary consumption have been the issue of such 
practices. Pupils have often suffered, in their eyes, 
from a strong glare of light, through a window in 
front of them. Such accidents should be carefully 
guarded aga ; nst. 

The practice of self- pollution, among youth at 
school, especially in boarding schools, is much more 
frequent than is generally imagined.^ And no vice 
is more detestable or ruinous. Health, intellect, 
morals — all purity, dignity, and self-respect sinks 
beneath it, in promiscuous and hopeless ruin. When 
carried to excess, it produces idiotism, in the most 
deplorable and disgusting form, accompanied by im- 
paired vision and hearing, paralysis, and other dis- 
tressing infirmities, and terminates in death. No 
vigilance to prevent it therefore can be too strict; 
and, when it is detected, no remonstrance against it 
can be too solemn, no representation of its direful 
effects too strong, no denunciation of it too stern, and, 
if persevered in, no penalty for it too heavy. But 
it inflicts its own penalty, in the entire desolation of 
the being, who perpetrates it. Not confined, in its 
effects, to the offenders, it falls as a lasting blight on 
their posterity. In boarding-schools, moreover, the 
practice is contagious, spreading from one to another, 
until many, if not the whole, are polluted. The first 
culprit detected, therefore, should be removed from 
the institution, as a moral lazar, dangerous alike to 
10 



110 PHYSICAL EDUCATION, 

purity and soundness of mind and body. But he 
ought not to be hopelessly abandoned to his fate. 
Every practicable expedient to reform him should 
be adopted and persevered in. And the best plan 
of reform consists in some active and interesting em- 
ployment, engaged in with alacrity and industriously 
pursued — so industriously as to banish idleness, and 
allow but little time even for amusement; for lei- 
sure and idleness are often the source and always one 
of the nurses of the evil to be corrected. And if 
all other means fail, marriage should be resorted to y 
as soon as the individual has arrived at maturity, and 
is in a condition to form that alliance. This vice 
occurs in families, as well as in schools. Every where, 
therefore, in the physical education of youth, its pre- 
vention is a point of infinite moment. I shall only 
add, that, in proportion as the temperament is active, 
the development of Amativeness full, the moral and 
reflecting developements deficient, and the individual 
diffident and easily abashed, is the danger of his 
contracting the vice. In the same proportion, there- 
fore, should be the exertions made to protect him 
from it. :••"- 

Of dress, as a means in physical education, I have 
already spoken. A few further remarks on it, and 
I shall close my discourse. No article of dress 
should so compress any portion of the body, as to 
injure the skin, diminish the size and vigor of a 
muscle, restrict the flexibility of a joint, oppose a 
hindrance to the innervation of the part, or prevent 
the free circulation of the blood. If any thing be 



PHYSICAL EDUCATION. Ill 

benefited by unlimited freedom of action, it is the 
system of man, in its organized capacity — I mean 
the whole system. 

Pinching shoes and boots do much mischief. 
That they produce tormenting and crippling corns, 
every body knows in theory, and too many by woful 
experience. But this is not all, nor even the worst. 
They check the circulation of the pedal blood, make 
the feet cold, and sometimes aid in chilblaining them, 
diminish the size of the muscles of the part, and take 
from them their strength, and impede their action, 
by compressing them. Hence no one too tightly 
shod, walks either with elasticity or grace, or receives 
from the exercise half the benefit it would otherwise 
bestow. In truth, he is often injured by it. That 
an individual may move lightly or firmly with grace 
or usefulness, his feet must be springy and free. 
But cramping and torturing them by pressure, does 
further mischief. It produces, sympathetically, dys- 
pepsia and headache, and sometimes troublesome 
affections of the breast. Hemorrhagy from the nos- 
trils and lungs, and even apoplexy and pulmonary 
consumption are occasionally excited by it. I shall 
only add, that tight shoes disfigure the foot. The 
ancients were strangers to such torturing articles. 
Their sandals were light and easy. Hence the free 
and elegant form of their feet. This is seen in the 
Venus de Medici, the Perseus, the Anlinous, the 
Apollo Belvidere, and many other choice relics of 
antiquity. Let the feet of those statues be compared 
with the feet of elegantes and dandies, of the pres- 



112 PHYSICAL EDUCATION. 

ent day, and the beauty of the former will be found 
to be transcendent. 

The time was, but has fortunately gone by, for 
the present, when buckskin inexpressibles, far 
tighter than the skins of those whom they torment- 
ed, were nearly as bad, in the effects they produced. 
Though not equally painful, they were, in some re- 
spects, even more annoying and discomfortable. 
The first ' trying-on' of those articles, in which the 
strength and skill of the maker of them, backed by 
one or two able-bodied assistants, were indispensa- 
ble, was a fearful job — especially if the weather had 
sudorific qualities in it. And when, by a horse 
power or two, the garment was at length dragged 
home, buttoned over the knees, and strapped round 
the legs, then began the tug for motion. The vic- 
tim of fashion walked as if some of his joints were- 
anchylosed, and others tightly bandaged, on account 
of recent dislocation. From the waist downward,, 
there was less pliability in him than in the limbs of 
a centenarian, or a gourmand, stiffened by chronic 
gout. Nor was this all. His brood,, being denied a 
free passage, in a downward direction, like that of 
the Plantagenets, 'mounted' upwards, made his 
neck and face swell, and his eyes protrude, and 
turned his cheeks as red as the gills of a fish. This 
inquisition-work, long persisted in, eould not fail to be 
productive of mischief. The whole, however, being 
an act of homage, at the shrine of fashion, the dandy 
submitted to it, with the devotion of a new-made 
saint, and the imperturbable firmness of a martyr. 



PHYSICAL EDUCATION. 113 

And, to test to the uttermost his truth and constancy, 
getting out of his trammels, was sometimes a more 
awful trial than getting into them. 

Most earthly things, like the earth herself on her 
axis, whirl in a circle. Though cramping inexpres- 
sibles, therefore, are with our antipodes now, they 
will no doubt come back again. It is, therefore, 
that I have thought it right to enter my protest 
against them. They are a sad contrivance in phys- 
ical education. 

Tight cravats, by preventing a full flow of blood 
to the brain, through the arteries, and retarding its 
return, by the veins, do mischief. They operate 
prejudiciously in several ways. That they com- 
press the muscles of the neck, and diminish their 
size, cannot be doubted. Hence, the necks of the 
moderns, who wear them, are smaller and less 
comely, than those of the ancients, to whom they 
were unknown. The manly and elegant form and 
dimensions, as well as the fine attitude and bearing, 
of the necks of ancient statues, are themes of univer- 
sal admiration and praise. And they are, no doubt, 
chiefly, if not exclusively, attributable to the free 
and uncompressed condition of the necks of their 
originals. It is observed, by travellers, that the 
peasantry of Lombardy have finer necks than any 
other peasantry in Europe ; and they wear nothing 
round them. 

The diminution of the size of the neck, however, 
is neither the only, nor the greatest evil, which tight 
cravats produce. If, in any case, they restrict the 
10* 



I 14 PHYSICAL EDUCATION. 

nourishment and vitalization of the brain, by with- 
holding from it a competent supply of arterial, and 
too long retaining in it an accumulation of venous 
blood, they necessarily weaken the operations of the 
mind. This is as certain, as that the reduction of 
the natural flux of blood to a muscle lessens its vig- 
or. As heretofore slated, the vitality of the brain is 
derived from the arterial blood j and, other things 
being equal, as is its vitality, so is its perfection, as 
the organ of the mind. Were it possible, without 
doing an injury to other parts, to augment the con- 
stant afflux of healthy arterial blood to the brain, 
the mental operations would be invigorated by it. I 
state this opinion confidently, because we often wit- 
ness its verification. When a public speaker is 
flushed and heated in debate, his mind works more 
freely and powerfully than at any other time. Why ? 
Because his brain is in better tune. What has thus 
suddenly improved its condition ? An increased 
current of blood into it, produced by the excitement 
of its own increased action. That the blood does, 
on such occasions, flow more copiously into the 
brain, no one can doubt, who is at all acquainted 
with the cerebral sensations, which the orator him- 
self experiences at the time, or who witnesses the 
unusual fulness and flush of his countenance, the 
dewiness, flashing, and protrusion of his eye, and 
the throbbing of his carotid and temporal; arteries. 
It is well known, that, while intensely engaged in a 
memorable debate, last winter, in Washington, a 
distinguished senator became so giddy, by the mar- 



PHYSICAL EDUCATION. 115 

dinate rushing of blood into his brain, that he was 
obliged to sit down ; and the senate adjourned, to 
give him time to recover. And, more recently, a 
new member of the House of Representatives fell, 
while speaking, and suddenly expired from the same 
cause. A member of the Law Class of Transylva- 
nia, moreover, experienced, a few weeks ago, a 
convulsive affection, from a congestion of blood in 
the head, induced by excessive excitement of the 
brain, in rhe ardor of debate. Nor is this all. In 
several individuals, whose brain had been denuded, 
and brought into view, by accident or disease, the 
movement and swelling of the organ were rendered 
palpable, by the flux of blood into it, during intense 
feeling, and active thought. A remarkable case of 
this description, occurred in Montpelier, in 1822 ; 
and others, somewhat similar, are mentioned by Sir 
Astley Cooper, in his Lectures on Surgery. Had T 
leisure, and were it requisite, 1 could cite numerous 
instances of a like description. Sudden and deep 
emotion, as well as the vigorous working of the in- 
tellectual powers, has produced phrenitis, palsy, and 
apoplexy, by a superabundant rushing of blood into 
the brain. Inordinate excitement, of whatever kind 
it may be, draws an unusual amount of blood into 
that organ; and such an amount is essential to the 
maintenance of the excitement thus brought on. 

Believing that a cravat had a bad effect on the 
operations of his mind, Lord Byron never wore one. 
Report indeed says, that his reason for this was, his 
desire to show his neck uncovered, on account of 



116 PHYSICAL EDUCATION. 

its uncommon beauty. This, however, is probably, 
but a petty slander. His motives were best known 
to himself. Nor can any one doubt, that immoder- 
ate compression of the neck does mischief. Head- 
ache, impaired vision, and hemorrhagy from the 
nose, are among its effects. So, we are told, is 
apoplexy. 

An article of dress remains to be noticed, which 
is immeasurably worse, in its effects, than all those 
whose influence 1 have considered. Motives of 
prudence, if not of gallantry, might impose silence 
on me respecting it, did not a regard for truth and 
duty, and a wish to be useful, invoke me to speak 
out. The article makes a part of the apparel, I 
may not say the ornament of woman, whose delica- 
cy I would, in no case, willingly offend, and whose 
displeasure I would never intentionally incur, except 
in an effort to do her good. It is probably already 
conjectured, that my allusion is to corsets. If so, 
the conjecture is correct. I do allude to corsets, 
and prouounce them, most seriously, an alarming 
evil. The crippling machinery, with which the 
females of China compress and disfigure their feet 
and ancles, making the former too small, and the lat- 
ter too thick and clumsy, are innocent to them. 
Corsets compress and disfigure a portion of the sys- 
tem infinitely more important, than the mere termin-* 
ation of the lower extremities. While the Pagan 
ladies, confine their attack to the out-posts of life, 
the fair Christians assault the citadel. By curtailing 
the dimensions of two of the great cavities of the 



PHYSICAL EDUCATION. 117 

body, corsets obstruct the growth, and impair the 
functions of the organs they contain. And it has 
been already stated, that these are among the gov- 
erning organs of the body, whose injury or unsound 
condition proves prejudical to every other portion of 
it. I allude to the stomach, liver, and all the other 
chyle-making and chyle-carrying viscera, and to the 
heart, lungs, and large blood-vessels. These are all 
compressed and deranged in their functions, and 
most of them reduced in their size, removed from 
their places, and altered in their shape, by tight cor- 
setting. It is in vain to deny the truth of this, as an 
excuse for disregarding the warning it imparts. The 
fact can be, and has repeatedly been demonstrated, 
in anatomical researches. I shall exhibit to you, 
presently, satisfactory proof of it. 

To secure to adult females what are called fine 
figures — which mean waists, shoulders, and hips, 
quite out of symmetry with each other, and with the 
rest of the body — the corset-screws are applied to 
them, while they are young girls, their whole sys- 
tems being tender, and their bones comparatively 
soft and flexible. The consequence is, that, when 
the lacing is tight — and it is always too tight, for 
there should be none at all of it — 'their ribs, espe- 
cially the false ones, are pressed inwardly, to such an 
extent, that their front ends nearly touch each other,- 
if they do not actually overlap ; whereas, in their 
natural position, they are wide apart. Even the 
upper ribs are, at times, so pressed on, as to be flat- 
tened, or rather straightened, in their lateral arches, 



i 18 PHYSICAL EbtiCAtlOtf* 

and protruded forward, carrying along with them the 
breast-bone, to which they are attached* Thus is 
the whole trunk of the body altered) in its figure and 
dimensions^ but not improved. Far from it. All is 
For the worse, as well in appearance, as effect. 
The abdominal cavity, being, in this way, preternat- 
urally straightened in a horizontal direction, its vis- 
cera are pressed inordinately upward against the di- 
aphragm. That membrane being thus , forced up- 
ward also, compresses, in its turn, the lungs, heart, 
and large blood-vessels, and brings them more or 
less into collision with the thoracic duct, obstructing 
in some degree the movement of the chyle. In this 
forced and unnatural condition of things, all the func- 
tions of these viscera, so fundamentally necessary, 
not merely to the well-being of the system, but its 
very existence, are deranged by compression. Let 
us glance, in detail, at the mass of mischief thence 
arising. 

The whole digestive apparatus being impaired in 
its action, dyspeptic affections follow; neither is a 
sufficient amount of wholesome chyle formed, nor of 
bile secreted, both of which are so indispensable to 
a sound state of the blood, and in other respects -so 
important to the system ; and the sympathetic influ- 
ence of the unhealthy organs, on the other parts of 
the body, is rendered deleterious. Add to this, that 
the compressed organs themselves, being weakened, 
are unusually liable to further disease, from the ac- 
tion of any morbific cause. 

The lungs being enfeebled and deranged, not only 



PHYSICAL, EDUCATION, 119 

is respiration defective, and the blood imperfectly 
matured and vitalized, but they themselves, in com- 
mon with the stomach, liver, and other associated 
parts, are in a state of increased liability to additional 
suffering. Hence homopthisis, pulmonary consump- 
tion, and dropsy of the chest often ensue, I knew 
a young female of some distinction, as respected 
both her mind and family, in the city of New York, 
who, some years ago, became known, from tight cor- 
setting, by the name of the ' Lady with the small 
waist 1' Notwithstanding her good sense in other 
things, this excited her ambition to render herself 
still more worthy of the title, and to prevent, if pos- 
sible, in others, all competition for it. She therefore 
increased the tightness of her corsets, until she be- 
came hump-shouldered, and died in consumption. 
Nor did any one doubt that her corsets were the 
cause. She was married, and left an infant son, 
who, from the slenderness of his frame, and the del- 
icacy of his constitution, is threatened with his moth- 
er's complaint. He inherits her corset-broken con- 
stitution. 

Of the heart, the same is true. From its com- 
pressed and debilitated condition, it becomes affected 
with palpitation, dropsy, inflammation, or some other 
malady — perhaps aneurism — and is incompetent 
to the vigorous circulation of the blood. Hence 
every portion of the system suffers — the brain and 
nerves not excepted, they depending, like other 
organs, on the arterial blood, for their health and 
power of action. Even the nerves of the organs 



120 PHYSICAL EDUCATION. 

subjected to pressure are mechanically injured. Since 
the introduction of corsets, as an article of dress, 
diseases of the heart, among females, are much more 
frequent than formerly ; and they have been traced 
to that cause, in innumerable instances. Cases of 
the kind could be easily cited. Respecting schir- 
rous and cancerous affections of the breasts, in wo- 
men advanced in life, the same is true. Those 
complaints are far more prevalent now, than they 
were before the present ruinous style of lacing. 

From the foregoing view of their destructive ef- 
fects on the female system, added to another, which 
motives of delicacy forbids me to mention,* it is 

* My allusion will be readily understood to be to that dimi- 
nution of the abdominal cavity, which prevents the full ex- 
pansion of the gravid uterus. This necessarily diminishes the 
size and vigor of the foetus, in a corresponding degree, and 
implants in it the elements of future disease. For unnatural 
compression can scarcely injure it less before birth, than after 
it. Premature parturition, is often the effect of this forced 
and restricted condition of the organs. 

Let me not be told, that females lay aside their corsets, or 
ioosenthem greatly, during gestation. That matters but little. 
The damage is already done, and cannot be repaired. The 
diminution, I mean, of the abdominal cavity is already produced, 
and rendered permanent, by the pressure of the ribs inwardly, 
and their having become fully ossified, and fixed in that posi- 
tion. So confident were the Spartans of the importance at- 
tached to the full dimension of the abdominal cavity of fe- 
males, that they prescribed, by law, the form of dress they 
were to wear, during pregnancy; and its leading feature was 
its looseness, that it might produce no injurious pressure. I 
need scarcely add, that the Spartans surpassed the other inhab- 
itants of Greece, in their size, strength, and hardihood, as well 
as in their fine personal proportions. 



PHYSICAL EDUCATION. 12 L 

neither unjust nor extravagant, to say of corsets, 
that they threaten a degeneracy of the human race. 
And, were they worn by all females, as they are by 
many, they would as certainly produce it, as an 
impaired fruit-tree yields faded fruit — and on the 
same ground. The descendants of tight-corsetting 
mothers, will never become the luminaries and leaders 
of the world. The mothers of Alexander and 
Hannibal, Caesar and Napoleon, never distorted 
their persons by such a practice. Nor is the whole 
mischief of those articles yet summed up. 

The straightness of the spinal column depends on 
tbe strength of the muscles that support it. But 
those muscles are enfeebled by the pressure of cor- 
sets. Hence the spine bends and becomes distorted. 
Instances of crooked spine have been fearfully mul- 
tiplied in the fashionable female circles of Europe 
and America, since the beginning of the present 
century ; while in Greece, Turkey, Persia, Arabia, 
and other parts of Asia, as well as in Africa, where 
no tight forms of dress are thought of, it is almost 
unknown. Nor does it appear among our own 
countrywomen, whose persons are suffered to retain 

An agriculturist has a stock of beautiful and valuable horses. 
What effect would he produce on their progeny, by so band- 
aging the females, when young, as to take from their abdomi- 
nal cavities a third of their size ? — I answer, deep deteriora- 
tion. Nor is that produced on the human family, by a similar 
practice, less striking. Were the higher classes of the inhab- 
itants of Europe larger and stronger, a few centuries ago, than 
they are now ? They were not the descendants of corse tted 
mothers. 

11 



122 PHYSICAL EDUCATION. 

the shape, which God intended for them. This 
breach of his law, therefore, inflicts the penalty in- 
curred by the fault. 

It appears, from actual computation, that, of the 
females, who have been accustomed, from early life, 
to tight corsetting, nearly one fourth have some un- 
natural and disfiguring flexure of the spine ! By not 
a few observers and calculators, the proportion is 
maintained to be much greater. A Scottish gentle- 
man, of distinction, assures us, that he has examined 
about two hundred young females, in fashionable 
boarding-schools, and that scarcely one of them was 
free from some sort of corset-injury. Those, whose 
spines were not distorted, had unsightly effects pro- 
duced on their shoulder-blades, collar-bones, or 
some other part of the chest, which stuffing and 
wadding would be requisite to conceal. Some were 
hunch-backed, and, in not a few, one shoulder was 
higher than the other ; effects, which, in our own 
country, are much more frequent, than is generally 
suspected. In no individual, was true personal 
symmetry amended by the practice ; while, in almost 
every one it was impaired, and, in many, destroyed. 
In fact, such pressure cannot fail to injure the sym- 
metry of the trunk, that being its direct tendency. 
The custom, therefore, is as foreign from correct 
taste, as from sound philosophy — and I was near 
saying, from humanity and moral rectitude. 

Woman was not intended to be turned, by artifi- 
cial means, into an insect, with broad square shoul- 
ders, and a spindle waist. The latter portion of 



PHYSICAL EDUCATION. 123 

her body was designed to be something more than 
skin and bone. For her benefit as well as for the 
elegance of her form, nature has surrounded it with 
substantial muscles, and cellular tissue, which ought 
not to be sported with and wasted, in compliance 
with fashion and a spurious taste. And she may 
rest assured, that she is not only more healthy, vig- 
orous, and comfortable, but also an object of greater 
attraction, with a flexible and fleshy, than with a 
shrivelled, stiffened, and skinny waist. Nor are the 
female shoulders broad and square, by nature, which 
alone gives patterns of real beauty. An attempt to 
render them so, by art, therefore, is equally repug- 
nant to correct taste, and sound judgment. Yet, 
such is the effect of tight corsetting. Preventing the 
blood from circulating freely through the muscles of 
the lower part of the trunk, or rather of its middle, 
it throws it into those of its upper portion, preternat- 
urally nourishing and enlarging them, and raising and 
squaring the shoulders, and rendering them pointed. 
The mere mechanical action of corsets contributes 
to the latter effect, by forcing upward the muscles 
of the chest, together with the upper ribs, shoulder- 
blades, and collar-bones. And time renders the 
deformity permanent. No woman, who has worn 
tight corsets, from her girlhood, has, or ever will 
have, those important parts of her frame in their 
proper places: they are all more or less dislocated; 
and the effect produced, is a direct deviation from 
beauty of form. Burke, in speaking of the fascinat- 
ing elegance of the female bust, in his treatise on 



124 PHYSICAL EDUCATION. 

the ' Sublime and Beautiful,' gives a description of 
it extremely different from the bust of a well-corset- 
ted fashionable, of the present day. His just and 
glowing picture is made up entirely of easy slopes 
and graceful curve lines. We have too much now 
of points, angles, and masculine squarenesses. Yet 
the female figure, when not put out of shape, is as 
beautiful now as it was then. Independently of the 
injury done to health, the personal disfiguration pro- 
duced by tight corsets, hogshead skirts, and shoulder 
balloons, is a lasting reproach on the taste of the 
times. 

It is to man, that nature has given broad, square, 
and brawny shoulders, and a waist comparatively 
narrow. And, so far as tight corsets and other arti- 
cles of dress may avail, woman is usurping his 
figure. I need scarcely add, that, in grace and 
beauty of person, which confer on her much of her 
attractiveness and power, and should therefore be 
among the cherished objects of her ambition, she is 
losing greatly by the change. Man submits to 
woman, and courts her approbation and smiles ; his 
best affections cling to her, and his arm and life 
protect her, on account of her womanly qualities. 
Any thing masculine in her, excites his dissatisfac* 
tion, not to give the feeling a stronger name. And 
broad, square shoulders are masculine, suited only 
to a man, and a virago. There is in them nothing 
of that delieacy, appeal for protection, and all-sub- 
duing loveliness, which we instinctively attach to the 
word feminine. Instead of doing aught, therefore, 



PHYSICAL EDUCATION. 125 

to create in herself such a form of person, woman 
should shun it, as she would deformity, of any other 
kind. 

T have said that tight corsetting, obstructing the 
free passage of the blood downward, throws it into 
the superior portion of the trunk. But it does more ; 
it forces it, in preternatural quantities, but impaired 
in quality, into the head, and produces there, many 
forms of disease that are painful and annoying, and 
some that are dangerous. Among these are head- 
ache, giddiness, bleeding from the nose, imperfect 
vision and other affections of the eyes, noise in the 
ears, convulsions, and apoplexy. Fainting is an- 
other effect of this preternatural accumulation of 
blood in the brain, the reason of which is plain. 
While the corsets are on and laced, a sufficient 
quantity of blood is sent to the brain, to enable that 
organ to sustain, by its influence, the heart and mus- 
cles of voluntary motion, and hold them to their func- 
tions. As soon, however, as the corsets are unlaced, 
the blood forsakes the brain, in part, and flows natur- 
ally through its downward channels. The conse- 
quence is obvious. The brain being thus enfeebled, 
for want of the blood necessary for its vitality, and 
the functions it performs, and its invigorating influ- 
ence being no longer extended to the system gener- 
ally, the heart and muscles fail in their action, and 
the individual faints. This occurrence takes place 
on the same ground with fainting from venesection, 
or any other form of hemorrhagy. Too much blood 
is withdrawn from the brain. That viscus is de- 
ll* 



126 PHYSICAL EDUCATION. 

priveeL of course, of much of its own vitality and 
power to act. Nor is this all. It is deprived, also, 
of much of the material, from which it prepares its 
sustaining influence, for the body generally. For 
whatever the matter of cerebral influence may be,, 
it is prepared from the blood, as certainly as bile and 
saliva are. 

Almost all females who lace tightly, complain of 
weakness, when their corsets are removed ; and 
many of them are obliged to assume a horizontal 
posture, to escape asphyxia. Worse still. Some 
are compelled to wear their corsets, as a part of their 
night-dress ! Even a horizontal posture, does not 
secure them from a tendency to faint. This is so 
deplorable a condition, that the practice which in- 
duces it, involves criminality. Many acts are called 
felonious, and made punishable by law, which, con- 
trasted with it, are innocent. By permitting it, 
parents, especially mothers, assume a responsibility, 
which might well make them tremble. They are 
accessory to its consequences, however fatal. In- 
deed, possessing, as they do, full powers of preven- 
tion, they should be considered principals. 

Perhaps all females, who wear corsets, though 
they may not faint on removing them, nor even feel 
a tendency to that effect, complain of uneasiness and 
debility in the back, or some other part of the trunk. 
The reason is plain. The muscles of the part being 
weakened by pressure, require the continuance of it, 
as the sot does the stimulus of his dram,, to give 
them tone and strength sufficient to sustain the 



PHYSICAL EDUCATION. 127 

weight of the body, in an erect position. Hence the 
individual bends the trunk ungracefully ; and, unless 
vigor of the muscles be restored, she is threatened 
with a spinal curvature. * 

Even beauty of countenance is impaired, and, in 
time, destroyed, by tight corsets. Do you ask me 
in what way ? I answer, that those instruments of 
mischief wither in the complexion, the freshness of 
health, and substitute for it the sallowness of dis- 
ease — on the spots, where the rose and the ruby 
had shed their lustre, they pour bile, and sprinkle 
ashes. They do still more, and worse. They dap- 
ple the cheek with unsightly blotches, convert its 
fine cuticle into a motley scurf, blear the eyes, dis- 
color the teeth, and dissolve them by caries, and tip 

* Many women of intelligence and experience are inclined 
to believe, that some form of bracing around the female waist 
is, if not essential, highly useful, in giving support to the body, 
and maintaining its erect posture. This is a mistake. Such 
artificial support is required, only as a consequence of disease, 
or from the debilitated condition of the muscles, by previous 
tight lacing. True, — the muscles of the female body are fee- 
bler than those of the male. But, corresponding to this, the 
weight of the body is less. In consequence of this fitness, 
the trunk of woman requires, by nature, no more artificial aid 
to keep it straight, than the trunk of man. Hence the elegance 
of the female form, in Georgia, Circasia, and other parts of 
Asia where tightness of dress is unfashionable and unknown. 
The necessity of corsets, therefore, to sustain the person, arises 
from the misfortune of having ever worn them. And, unless 
the practice be abandoned, that misfortune, like other consti- 
tutional defects, will pass from mother to daughter, in an in- 
creasing ratio, until it shall result in a fearful degeneracy of 
our race. 



128 PHYSICAL EDUCATION. 

the nose with cranberry red. That effects of this 
description often result from gastric and hepatic de- 
rangement, every practitioner of medicine knows. 
And it has been already shown, that such derange- 
ment is produced by corsets. 

But those articles make still more fatal havoc of 
female beauty, by imprinting on the countenance — 
not premature wrinkles — that could be borne — but 
marks of the decay of mental beauty — I mean deep 
and indelible lines of peevishness, fretfulness, and 
ill-temper, the bitter result of impaired health. No 
form of indisposition so incurably ruins the temper of 
woman, as that which prematurely destroys her beau- 
ty, especially if she feels conscious that her own in- 
discretions have been instrumental in its production. 
To the truth of this, experience testifies. Indepen- 
dently, moreover, of their cause, no other complaints 
pour into the temper such acerbity and bitterness, as 
those of the digestive organs. This is also the re- 
sult of experience. Man, but more especially wo- 
man, bears fever, pulmonary consumption, fractures, 
wounds, and other forms of injury and disease, with 
a patience and mildness, which, if they do not im- 
prove her personal beauty, increase her loveliness, 
and add tenfold to the sympathy and sorrow felt for 
her suffering. But dyspeptic affections, especially, 
I repeat, if a busy and tormenting consciousness 
whispers hourly into her ear, that she has herself 
contributed to their production, by a practice she 
might have avoided, and of the ruinous effects of 
which she was repeatedly warned — complaints of 
this description are submitted to, by her, in a differ- 



PHYSICAL EDUCATION. 129 

ent spirit. She becomes irritable, capricious, gloomy, 
and full of complaints and fearful imaginings. Un- 
happy in herself, she seems, in contradiction with 
her nature, to forget or disregard the happiness of 
others, and does not even shrink from proving the 
bane of it. I intend not these remarks, as a censure 
on woman. Far from it. I mean them as a denun- 
ciation — and would that it were exterminating — of 
the abominable practice, that destroys her peace, 
and mars her loveliness. 

Under this head, I shall only add, that, in the 
higher walks of life, our fair countrywomen, espe- 
cially in the Southern States, are more delicate and 
feeble in constitution, and therefore less robust in 
health, than they are in Europe — more so, certainly, 
than they are in Great Britain, France, or Germany, 
The slenderness of their frames, and the semi-pal- 
lidness of their complexions testify to this. It is 
noticed by all strangers of observation, and cannot 
be otherwise regarded, than as an evil, ominous of 
the degeneracy of our descendants. Women con- 
stitutionally feeble cannot be the mothers of a vig- 
orous offspring. There is reason to fear, that this 
fragile delicateness will, by means of a spurious 
taste, pass into an element of female beauty, in the 
United States ; and that will render it a national 
evil to endure for ages. That this will be the case, 
is not to be doubted, unless the proper remedy be 
applied. Nor is that remedy unknown, of difficult 
application, or dubious effect. It consists in a well- 
directed physical education. That that will remove 
the evil, appears from the fact, that the females of our 



130 



PHYSICAL EDUCATION. 



country, in the middle and lower ranks of life, who 
take sufficient exercise in the open air, and do not 
injure themselves by their modes of dress, are as 
healthy and vigorous as any in the world. No man 
of taste wishes to see our highly-cultivated women, 
with milk-maid complexions, or harvest-field persons. 
But had they a little more of both than they now 
possess, they would be not only more comfortable 
in themselves, but more lovely in the eyes of others. 
In the European countries referred to, cultivated fe- 
males neither house themselves so much, nor marry 
at so early an age, as they do in the United States. 
Hence their health is better, and their frames stronger. 



No. I. 



No. II. 




Before I close my discourse, allow me to exhibit 
to you two figures. No. I. is a correct outline of 



PHYSICAL EDUCATION. 131 

the Venus de Medici, the beau ideal of female sym- 
metry, and No. II. that of a well-corsetted modern 
beauty. And it might be sufficient comment, sim- 
ply to say, ' Look on this picture, and on this.' One 
has an artificial insect waist ; the other the natural 
waist of woman. One has sloping and graceful 
shoulders; while the shoulders of the other are 
comparatively elevated, square, and angular. The 
proportion of the corsetted female below the waist 
is also a departure from the symmetry of nature. 

Suppose two statues, as large as life, accurately 
executed, one of them resembling the ancient, and 
the other the modern beauty ; which would be pre- 
ferred, even by the taste of the present day ? The 
question requires no reply. A suitable answer rises 
spontaneously in the mind of every one. The mod- 
ern statue would be pronounced ' deformity' — per- 
haps a ( fright ;' the other a miracle of beauty. And 
the decision would be just. 

1 know of but one other custom, so perfectly cal- 
culated to produce a degeneracy of the human race,, 
as that of contracting the dimensions of the waist 
of woman, weakening her constitution, and distorting 
her spine ; and even that is, in some respects, less 
injurious. I allude to the practice of the Caribs, 
the most brutal and ferocious tribe of American In- 
dians, in flattening their heads. Nor does the cus- 
tom of the savage produce deformity more real, than 
that of the civilized and fashionable female. Yet 
the effects of the one are looked on with professed 
admiration ; while those of the other are regarded 



132 PHYSICAL EDUCATION. 

with horror. Compared to either of them, the prac- 
tice of the Chinese ladies, as already stated, in dis- 
figuring their feet and ancles, is taste and innocence. 

Finally. — One of the leading benefits to be be- 
stowed on our race, by Physical Education judicious- 
ly practised, and carried to the requisite extent, is 
the production and preservation of a well-adjusted 
balance, not only between the different portions of 
the brain, but of the whole body. Few persons, if 
any at all, bring into life with them, a system per- 
fectly balanced, in all its parts. Some organs pre- 
dominate in size and strength, while others are com- 
paratively small and feeble. This is a tendency to 
disease, and can be removed or amended, only by 
competent training. Let it never be forgotten, that 
the proper exercise of a part, and that alone, in- 
creases both its bulk and power, and, at the same 
time, diminishes any excess of sensitiveness it may 
possess. And this is precisely what small and feeble 
parts require, to place them on a par with others, 
and secure their health. To illustrate my meaning, 
and show it to be true : — 

Is the chest of a boy narrow, and are his lungs 
weak and irritable ? Let those parts be habitually 
exercised, according to the directions already given, 
and such a change may be produced in him, as will 
give an equipoise to his body, and prevent disease. 
His chest and lungs may be enlarged, not a little, 
and as well secured from complaints, as his other 
organs. From the free and constant exercise which 
their calling gives to their arms, shoulders, and 



PHYSICAL EDUCATION. 133 

thoracic walls and viscera. London boatmen have 
large chests, and are strangers to consumption. The 
loud and habitual call, moreover, by which they an- 
nounce their business, and solicit employment, aids 
in the development and strengthening of their lungs. 
From these causes, though perpetually exposed to 
the damp and chilling air of the Thames, they rarely 
experience any form of pectoral disease. 

Of every small and feeble part of the system the 
same is true. A judicious scheme of training will 
enlarge and strengthen it. But hereditary predis- 
position lo disease is nothing else than the want of 
an equipoise between all the different portions of 
the body. Some organs being comparatively weak 
and sensitive, are prematurely prone to actual de- 
rangement. By well directed exercise, therefore, 
continued through successive generations, may every 
predisposition of the kind be eradicated. 

Such is the best outline of my views of Physical 
Education, that my other engagements have allowed 
me to prepare. Sensible of its imperfections, but 
unable at present to remove or lessen them, I must 
throw it, for acceptance, on the indulgence of those 
to whom it has been presented. 
12 



